[First Formal Meeting Between Anglican Church of Canada and Episcopal Church in the United States]
https://archives.anglican.ca/link/official5312
- Date
- 1968 October 7
- Source
- Anglican News Service
- Type
- Press Release
- Text of motion
- Ecclesiastical history will be made later this month when nearly 250 bishops of the two North American churches of the Anglican Communion meet at Augusta, Ga., to examine current religious and social problems of joint concern.
- For nearly two centuries the Episcopal Church in the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada have worked in friendly association, but independently, as autonomous members of the world-wide communion now embracing 19 churches with a membership exceeding 45,000,000. The Augusta assembly, October 20-24, will mark the first formal sessions of their episcopal leaders.
- Fresh from the Lambeth Conference held two months ago, the bishops, headed by Presiding Bishop John F. Hines of the American church and the Canadian Primate, Most Rev. Howard H. Clark, may be expected to make concrete proposals on matters to which the London gathering's approach was non-committal.
- Coming under close scrutiny will be the nature of the Anglican ministry, overseas mission strategy, church union, inter-communion with non-Anglican churches, and relations with Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches. Equally important will be questions of poverty, race, and war and peace in which the Canadian and American churches share a joint concern.
- "Churches of the Anglican Communion in different parts of the world have often found that the nationalisms of their members have a tendency to militate against mutual understanding and common action," said Archbishop Clark in an interview. "Canadians and Americans have been no exception, but we regard the Augusta meeting as a big step forward toward cementing our cordial relationship by down-to-earth discussion of common problems."
- Each of the churches has a House of Bishops, but the houses have no legislative authority except when with representatives of clergy and laity they form legislative bodies, known as the General Synod in Canada and the General Convention in the United States.
- "The church all over the world is carefully examining its ministry," said the Canadian Primate. "In North America, if it is to be effective, it must operate in a manner that suits our particular world."
- "We share so many things in our culture and our problems are similar. Old established forms of worship are subject to change and development with the growth of new art forms. Experimental liturgies are being widely used as we try to meet youth's demands for an approach to worship in the modern idiom."
- He hopes that the forthcoming meeting will help the bishops to work out concrete proposals regarding inter-communion, revision of the diaconate and increased use of the mass media to reach people out of touch with the church.
- "Lambeth could not supply complete guidelines for the church in the modern world, but it did point the direction in which we should go," he said.
- Formation of a North American Council involving the Canadian and United States branches of Anglicanism and the Church of the West Indies may have a place on the agenda. The scheme has been discussed informally for several years but has not yet reached the planning stage because of financial problems facing the church in the Caribbean which is closely linked with the Church of England.
- The council's primary purpose would be to assess the needs and resources of the Anglican churches in the vast area to to co-ordinate their relationships and those with other churches.
- Subjects
- Anglican Church of Canada - Relations - Episcopal Church
- Episcopal Church - Relations - Anglican Church of Canada
- Clark, Howard H. (Howard Hewlett), 1903-1983
- Anglican Church of Canada. House of Bishops
- Episcopal Church. House of Bishops