Ecumenical Relations Commission to Study Goals
Episcopal News Service. February 25, 1977 [77072]
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- The Standing Commission on Ecumenical Relations, an agency of the Episcopal Church General Convention, held its first meeting in February in Cleveland and began work to evaluate and assess the Church's goals in ecumenism.
The commission, successor to the former Joint Commission, was created by the 1976 meeting of the Convention. The new status is designed to give the commission a permanent life of its own. As a joint commission, it was subject to renewal at each triennial meeting of the Convention.
The Rt. Rev. John H. Burt, Bishop of Ohio, was elected chairman of the new panel, a role he had also held under the previous arrangement. Mrs. John H. Jackson of Oregon was chosen vice chairman and the Very Rev. C. Allen Spicer, Dean of Easton, was elected secretary. Peter Day and the Rev. William A. Norgren, both of the Ecumenical Office of the Church Center, were named treasurer and assistant treasurer.
The commission agreed that the proposed study of goals will focus on models of future unity in the Church and the conclusions that have come out of the various ecumenical dialogues to date. Teams of theologians will undertake the studies in the different areas and their work will be considered by the commission and with the Episcopal Diocesan Ecumenical Officers and the Executive Council for report to the Colorado meeting of General Convention in 1979.
The commission's committees and their chairmen are: Eastern Church Relations, Bishop Donald Parsons of Quincy; Roman Catholic Relations, Bishop Arthur A. Vogel of Western Missouri; Protestant Churches and Communities, Bishop William Weinhauer of Western North Carolina; Unity Consultations, Bishop John M. Krumm of Southern Ohio; Diocesan/Local Ecumenism, Dean Elton Smith of Western New York; and Wider Episcopal Fellowship, Bishop David B. Reed of Kentucky.