Lutherans and Episcopalians Take Final Steps Toward 'Full Communion'
Episcopal News Service. July 10, 1990 [90178]
After 20 years of theological discussions, Lutherans and Episcopalians are poised on the verge of an agreement that could bring the two churches into "full communion."
The text of the crucial agreement was discussed at the mid-June meeting in New Orleans of Lutheran and Episcopal theologians who now hope to hammer out a final draft at their January meeting and send it to the churches for study, evaluation, and action at their respective conventions in 1991. If accepted there, the agreement would need ratification by the Episcopal dioceses and the synods of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).
The dialogue, regarded by many as the most successful bi-lateral dialogue among churches in this country, has been using a resource document adopted by the international Anglican-Lutheran dialogues and ratified by the Lambeth Conference and the Lutheran World Federation in 1983. The Cold Ash Report named for the city in England where the joint working group met, defines full communion as including these elements:
- The churches are interdependent but each maintains its own autonomy;
- Each church believes the other church holds the essentials of the Christian faith;
- Members of each church may receive the sacraments in the other church;
- Clergy of one body may exercise liturgical functions in a congregation of the other body when invited to do so;
- Bishops may participate in consecrations in either church;
- Churches in the same geographical area may share common worship, study, witness, and evangelism.
In 1982 Episcopalians and Lutherans in the United States established the "interim sharing of the Eucharist" and authorized a third set of dialogues to resolve issues standing in the way of full communion.
Defining a common agreement on ministry, especially the office of bishop, has been among the more difficult issues discussed during the dialogues. During the Reformation, German Lutherans abandoned the office of the bishop because they believed Roman Catholic bishops obstructed the teaching of the Gospel. Swedish Lutherans, however, kept the historic episcopate. The Church of England has maintained the historic episcopacy, claiming an unbroken continuity of bishops back to the apostolic period.
At the New Orleans meeting, dialogue participants heard a presentation from Lutheran Dr. Michael Root, research professor at the Institute for Ecumenical Research in Strasbourg, France, on "Full Communion between Episcopalians and Lutherans in North America: What Would It Look Like?" Root said that substantial agreement among the two churches already exists on a "special welcome" at the eucharist but now the churches must move from standing together at the altar to allowing clergy to stand in one another's place. "We can stand together and in place of each other because we see ourselves as one in mission," Root said. That means bishops need to be one in oversight as not only a sign of the church's unity but in order to maintain that unity, according to Root.
Among the participants in the third set of dialogues are:
- Bishop William Weinhauer(co-chair), retired Episcopal bishop of Western North Carolina
- Dr. Henry Chadwick, Cambridge University, England
- Dr. J. Robert Wright, General Theological Seminary, New York
- Dr. William Petersen, Colgate Rochester Divinity School, Bexley Hall, Rochester
- Dr. John Rodgers, Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, Ambridge, Pennsylvania
- Canon Stephen Platten, secretary for ecumenical affairs for the archbishop of Canterbury
- Dr. William Countryman, Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Berkeley, California Bishop
- Mark Dyer, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; Bishop Richard Grein, New York City
- The Rev. John Kevern, University of Chicago
- Dr. Richard Norris, Union Theological Seminary, New York
- Dr. William Norgren, ecumenical officer of the Episcopal Church, New York
- Dr. Paul Erickson (co-chair), retired bishop of the Illinois Synod
- Dr. Walter Bouman, Trinity Seminary in Columbus, Ohio
- Dr. William Rusch, ecumenical officer for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Chicago
- Dr. Paul Berge, Luther-Northwestern Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota
- Dr. Cyril Wismar, retired bishop of New England
- Dr. Edward Schneider, pastor from Champaign, Illinois
- Dr. Robert Goeser, Pacific Lutheran Seminary, Berkeley, California
- Dr. Daniel Martensen, ELCA ecumenical office, Chicago