Anglican Communion News Service

The fourth Conference of Anglican Provincial Secretaries meeting 24-31 August 2000, in Toronto, Canada faced crucial questions of unity and diversity throughout the Anglican Communion.

The conference was welcomed by the Primate, Archbishop Michael Peers, to the Retreat Centre Mississauga, Toronto, as guests of the Anglican Church of Canada and received a letter of encouragement from the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Provincial Secretaries came from thirty-one of the thirty-eight Provinces of the Anglican Communion and several extra-Provincial dioceses. They dealt with a wide range of practical issues affecting the work of the Secretaries around the Anglican Communion.

The conference heard presentations and conducted workshops dealing with funding, strategic planning, communication, organisational change, clergy discipline and the structure of the inter-Anglican budget.

Also discussed were issues facing the Provinces throughout the Communion such as international debt, issues of peace and justice, young people in the Church and living with diversity.

A plenary session on the Virginia Report affirmed that the issue of how we stay faithful and in communion with each other was of fundamental importance but there were some concerns that the Report's vision of how this was to be sustained was too narrow. Because of the importance of the issue the Provincial Secretaries look forward to serious appraisal of the report throughout the Communion.

The Provincial Secretaries shared news from each other's Provinces and heard with distress and pain the suffering of many places where the Church is persecuted or where there is violent political unrest. The impact on the life of the Church of civil wars in Sudan, Uganda, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, and in Sierra Leone was brought home to those present by the personal stories of their colleagues. News of the devastating floods in India, which directly affected one Secretary, came during the conference and brought home to all that our pilgrimage is set in the midst of uncertainty and suffering.

A major session of the conference was devoted to hearing of the situation of the Anglican Church of Canada and of the heritage of suffering and disadvantage from the experience of many native peoples in the Residential Schools. The Anglican Church of Canada faces potential catastrophic financial damages from cases in the Canadian courts arising out of the Church's involvement in the running of these Residential Schools to which native peoples were sent and where many were subjected to deprivation, suffering and abuse. Provincial Secretaries heard how the Canadian Church was working together with its indigenous people towards reconciliation and healing and had the privilege of hearing from and meeting some of the indigenous people involved in this process, who were able to tell their stories of pain and suffering and hope as part of the Anglican Church of Canada.

These stories led to a discussion of conflict of various kinds in the life of the Church. Many reported on their experiences, some in relation to the baggage of the colonial period, some from ethnic and political conflict in the communities in which they live, and some to do with tensions within the Church arising from extreme differences of conviction on certain issues.

These conflicts were dealt with in the life of the Provinces with a combination of dialogue, conversation, openness, respect for others, willingness to meet face to face with those who disagree, even with former enemies and persecutors. The meeting of those actually involved in the conflict was often the way in which understanding, forgiveness and respect were able to be won out of suffering. All could meet at the foot of the cross.

Conversations at the conference suggested that even within the world wide Anglican Communion this kind of direct conversation and dialogue between those actually involved in conflict and their respective supporters, could be a vital part of any strategy to sustain openness and integrity in the life of the Church.

All of these matters were mingled during the week with personal encounters, shared life and worship, all of which served to confirm the personal fellowship and connection which Christ gives so freely and graciously to his people.