Anglican Communion News Service - Digest News

The Most Revd John Neill, Archbishop of Dublin

As the Anglican Communion has developed into a worldwide communion of Churches, it has embraced a rich variety of cultures, languages and local identity. Each Church has usually expressed, as a vital part of that identity, its communion with either the Church of England or the See of Canterbury. This communion has been given visible expression since the nineteenth century by the Lambeth Conference of Bishops, called by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The characteristic features of the Communion are frequently expressed through the Chicago/Lambeth

Quadrilateral, with the fourfold emphasis on the Holy Scriptures, the Catholic Creeds, the Dominical Sacraments and the historic Episcopate.

During the latter part of the last century, the Anglican Consultative Council, comprising bishops, priests and laity, became an 'instrument of communion', holding the Churches together, alongside the role fulfilled by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lambeth Conference. More recently, the Primates' meeting was established, adding a fourth strand to the structures of the Anglican Communion.

Each of the Churches of the Anglican Communion is autonomous in its own Constitution, though some retain a specific role for the Archbishop of Canterbury. Others, such as the Church of Ireland, merely express their communion with the Church of England. The degree to which this autonomy is understood varies somewhat, either in a very 'insular' direction on the one hand, or as being 'autonomous within communion' on the other. If either autonomy or communion is made absolute, it begins to erode a vital aspect of Anglicanism as it has evolved.

Over the last few decades, Anglicanism has faced questions which have had substantial theological, sociological and cultural

implications, each of which has had the potential to disrupt either a sense of communion or, indeed, the reality itself. The chief areas of difficulty have related to ministry and sexuality – the ordination of women or same-sex relationships. It is at this point that the tension between being an autonomous Church and being in communion with other Churches becomes apparent.

If one Church does something that the others cannot accept at all, this puts intolerable strains on remaining 'in communion'. Questions over the gender of those ordained were containable between the member-Churches, but the issue of the consecration of a bishop living openly in a same-sex relationship caused a crisis for Anglicanism.

In this context, and looking to the future, it has been proposed and fairly generally accepted throughout the Anglican Communion that there should be a Covenant produced which would express what was essential to being 'in communion' with one another in terms of our shared faith and calling, and of our responsibility towards one another. In 2007, a first draft was produced in Nassau which, following miniscule amendment at the Primates' meeting in Dar es Salaam, was circulated for comment throughout the Communion. The Church of Ireland through the Standing Committee of General Synod established a Covenant Response Group which offered a response and proposed a much shorter redrafting.

Responses were received from many of the Anglican Churches, as well as from individual scholars and conferences and various groupings. These were all carefully examined in January 2008, when the Covenant Design Group, on which I serve, held its second meeting at St Andrew's House (The Anglican Communion Office) in London. This group is representative of Churches in Africa, Asia, North America and Oceania, and also of the various strands within Anglicanism.

In working with the Covenant Design Group, I learnt a great deal, but I would mention one or two insights that I gained, or gained afresh.

The first was that, in spite of the hyping of differences within our Communion, there is a deep determination to stay together, and that we really experienced a deep unity around prayer, the Bible and sharing in the Eucharist.

The second was that the role of Synods comprising bishops, clergy and laity varies greatly around the Communion. In some parts of the world, what the Primate says on almost any question is regarded as the voice of the Church, even though there has been no work done on the question at synodical level, whereas, in America and Europe, the voice of the Church requires a great deal of consultation before it is articulated.

This explained for me part of the reason for the entirely different perceptions of the power of the Primates' Meeting, and, indeed, of the Lambeth Conference itself. Those Churches which have a high regard for the role of Synods (such as our own) are very reticent to cede power to a Primates' Meeting.

The third thing that I discovered when we examined all the responses to the Covenant was that, sadly, there were few responses from those Churches which have been most outspoken about threats to the Communion. Many of them have other very important agendas of their own, but the sad thing is that if a Covenant is there to restore the fractures in the Anglican Communion, everybody needs to own the process, and especially those who feel alienated.

It would not be of value to examine the St Andrew's draft simply to see what of the Irish suggestions have found their way into the text. This was not the way that we worked, but rather, having steeped ourselves in all the responses, we began to discern certain trends, and, every now and then, we would discover that one or other Province had articulated something very clearly, but usually the same observation was made by several Churches or individual responses.

It is in the light of those responses and the working together of a very diverse but constructive Design Group that the St Andrew's Draft of the Anglican Covenant is now offered to the Communion in the lead up to the Lambeth Conference of 2008.

The features of the new drafting that will probably strike many people most forcibly include the following points:

• The overall structure is simpler, and based on three sets of affirmations with accompanying commitments, namely 'Our Inheritance of Faith', 'The Life we share with others: Our Anglican Vocation' and 'Our Unity and Common Life'.

• The blocks of biblical references are removed, but more use is made of direct and indirect scriptural quotation and of scriptural language in the Introduction and in the Covenant itself.

• There are two themes which find greater prominence, namely the emphasis on mission and the emphasis on reaching beyond those involved in this process, which is the wider ecumenical challenge.

• The fourfold Chicago/Lambeth Quadrilateral appears quite clearly in the first section, and the episcopal ministry is examined more fully in the third section as well.

• Because this Covenant is for the whole Communion, it had to be recognised that the position of some of the historic documents varies from one Church to another, as, for example, some Churches do not mention the Thirty- Nine Articles in either their formularies or in their Declarations of Assent. Reference is made to the formularies of the Church of England, therefore, when historic formularies are mentioned (1.1.2) rather than to a common list.

• The Instruments of Communion are not set in stone, but are listed in historical sequence and are set in the context of the many links which sustain our life together. The Primates' Meeting is listed last (in historic sequence) and there is no hint of it having a superior role or position in relation to discerning the will of the Communion, a feature which many feared in the earlier draft.

• Autonomy is emphasized throughout the document in relation to individual Churches, but the limits to that autonomy are obvious if communion is to be a reality, and so that phrase 'autonomous in communion' becomes very significant (3.1.2).

• Some responses had requested that the Anglican emphasis on reason should appear, though had not offered practical suggestions. However, in Section 1.2.2, which speaks of the handling of Scripture and Tradition, the concept of reason is admirably set forth.

• The controversial area will, of course, be Section 3.2.5 which deals with the handling of difficulties within the Anglican Communion. The Covenant really sets out no more than principles that Churches should accept to remain in communion. The appendix is not an official part of the Covenant, but simply a suggestion of how these principles might work out in practice. Some will see them as too legalistic, and there is the undoubted danger of building disciplinary procedures into a 'marriage' contract. We must not reduce the Covenant into a pre-nuptial agreement. I would hope that the Covenant will eventually go out by itself for approval and the type of issues outlined in the Appendix be left to the Anglican Consultative Council to agree and amend as necessary from time to time.

The Covenant Document is accompanied by an Introduction, by a Commentary and by an Appendix. These deserve study and may be downloaded from the internet at:

www.anglicancommunion.org/commission/covenant/

Item from: Church of Ireland Gazette