Diocesan Ecumenical Officers Grapple with Full Agenda in New Triennium
Episcopal News Service. May 29, 1992 [92121]
"Never was the ecumenical agenda of the Episcopal Church so packed with action as it is in this triennium -- and we are ready," the Rev. William Norgren said at the Episcopal Diocesan Ecumenical Officers Annual Meeting, May 4-7, in Denver. Norgren, the Episcopal Church's ecumenical officer, cited the Lutheran-Episcopal Dialogue's proposal for full communion, a report from the Consultation on Church Union (COCU), and the continuing dialogue with Roman Catholics and the Orthodox as major items on the ecumenical agenda.
At the top of that agenda is a directive from last summer's General Convention to "develop a process of study throughout this church, wherever possible in cooperation with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, of the theological soundness and ecumenical appropriateness" of proposals for full communion between the two churches.
Diocesan ecumenical officers will work with their bishops to develop a diocesan-level study of the final documents from the third series of dialogues, "Toward Full Communion" and "Concordat of Agreement." The diocesan study team, working with Lutherans in many cases, will choose parishes for the study and report the results of those studies to a provincial coordinator for discussion next spring. The responses will then be reviewed by a theological committee appointed by the church's Standing Commission on Ecumenical Relations.
"There was a great deal of energy around this challenge -- and a wide range of examples where the two churches are already cooperating in mission," the Rev. Christopher Agnew said after the meeting. Agnew, who is the Episcopal Church's associate ecumenical officer, said that the churches have shared the Eucharist since 1982 and have used that common experience to build broader cooperation.
A joint Lutheran-Episcopal coordinating committee is putting together a resource packet for use at the local level beginning this fall. The Lutherans voted last summer to postpone their official involvement in the study process until they complete a study of ministry in 1993.
Norgren reported to the diocesan ecumenical officers that the second report of the COCU is "before the dioceses for study." A questionnaire focusing on the eight elements of the covenant proposal was passed out at the meeting. Two dioceses in each province will be asked to respond, and provincial coordinators will return the questionnaires to the ecumenical office. The COCU is a "covenant communion of churches," comprised of nine denominations "committed to seek together a form of visible unity which will be at once truly catholic, truly evangelical, and truly reformed."
The Anglican-Roman Catholic agenda has been clouded by what Norgren called "widespread disappointment" with the Vatican's official response to the final report of the first dialogue (see December 11 ENS). "It is also important to recognize that the official Roman Catholic response establishes an area of common faith regarding the Eucharist and ministry between the two churches for the first time, which cannot in future be denied by Roman Catholics," Norgren added.
Norgren also reported that the dialogue with the Orthodox, suspended last June because of what the Orthodox called "recent developments and tendencies in the Anglican-Episcopal church," is still under discussion. "They are seeking means to define the nature of their relationships and dialogues with the Episcopal Church," Norgren said.
The church's Standing Commission on Ecumenical Relations is preparing for a national consultation on ecclesiology in the fall of 1993, with the theme, "Ecumenism of the Possible: Witness, Theology and the Future Church."
"The movement for the unity of Christians is living through a difficult period," Norgren observed. It is therefore important to "unite and coordinate forces and to exchange information" among the churches, he added. He concluded with a quote from the writer Bernard Dupuy: "If the hour of ecumenism has not yet come, there is an ecumenism of the possible which does not wait for its hour."
The diocesan ecumenical officers elected the Rev. Richard Townley, Jr., as their new president. Townley is ecumenical officer for the Diocese of New Jersey and is rector of St. Andrew's Church in Lambertville.