Old Catholics Sign Full Communion Agreement with Three Churches
Diocesan Press Service. October 7, 1965 [XXXVI-4]
This September in Vienna, before the opening session of the Old Catholic Congress, the International Conference of Old Catholic Bishops and the ranking bishops of three other churches - the Spanish Reformed Episcopal Church, the Lusitanian Church of Portugal and the Philippine Independent Church - signed a formal agreement of full communion.
In the agreement the four churches, all members of the Wider Episcopal Fellowship, permit their members to take part in the Sacraments of the others and recognize that inter-communion implies that each believes the other to hold all the essentials of the Christian Faith. Each of these churches is already in inter-communion with all or part of the Anglican Communion.
A message to the Old Catholic Congress from the Archbishop of Canterbury said that the full communion of Old Catholics and Anglicans is "a constant source of joy and thankfulness."
Noting that the Church of England is now engaged in union talks with the Methodist Church, he said he saw "no incompatibility between our hopes of Anglican-Methodist unity and the hopes for unity with the Holy Orthodox Church which Anglican and Old Catholics share together."