Anglican Communion News Service

By ACNS staff

Bishop of Christchurch the Rt Revd Victoria Matthews told delegates at the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) meeting today that she thought there were two Anglican Communion Covenants: one in people’s heads, the other the one written down.

Bp Matthews, as a member of IASCUFO¹, was introducing a session on the history and progress of the Covenant as part of the 15th ACC meeting in Auckland.

She stressed the point that it was not the work of IASCUFO to promote the Covenant, but rather to monitor its reception.

“As we have sought to do that,” she told delegates, “I have often thought that the document people discuss and the actual Anglican Covenant are two different documents.

"One is the document that people have in their mind and the other is the Anglican Communion Covenant on paper. So I really want [people] to read the Covenant and be focused on that. Because often, when people start talking about the Covenant, what they describe in their mind as the Covenant is unrecognisable.”

She went on to say that the questions behind the Covenant were: ‘What is the best way?’, ‘Is there a way that will keep us together safely?’, ‘What is our deepest fear when we consider decision-making processes?’.

“I believe that in the original idea of the Anglican Covenant, there was a desire to allow the Anglican Communion to be a safe place for conversation and the sharing of new ideas,” she said. “The actual document of the Anglican Covenant does not achieve that for all the churches of the Anglican Communion, and that is why some churches have declined to adopt it.

“Nevertheless, as we heard [from the Gospel reading] at last evening’s Evensong, at the core of God’s covenant with us is: ‘I will be your God and you will be my people.”

Bp Matthews added, “There are those who say [the Covenant] is punitive, and those who say it has no teeth. Both [these comments] tell me that it is not yet perceived, let alone received, as a truly safe way in which to encounter one another.”

In advance of a video shown to delegates on the history and detail of the Covenant, Bp Matthews asked delegates to reflect on “what there is in the Covenant that offers a possible way for us to talk to each other.”

“Remember most of the Covenant reminds us who we are in Christ,” she said.

Following the video, delegates were invited to spend time in Reflection Groups considering what they had learned from the Covenant process about themselves as Anglicans and about the Communion.

The responses are due to be brought back to the plenary feedback session next Tuesday 6 November.

For more information the media should contact Mr Jan Butter on +64 (0)2102991797 (international media) or the Revd Jayson Rhodes 021661319 (New Zealand media)

Notes to Editors

1. The Inter-Anglican Standing Committee on Unity, Faith and Order. IASCUFO’s mandate was approved by the Joint Standing Committee in November 2008. The Standing Commission shall have responsibility:

• to promote the deepening of Communion between the Churches of the Anglican Communion, and between those Churches and the other churches and traditions of the Christian oikumene
• to advise the Provinces and the Instruments of Communion on all questions of ecumenical engagement, proposals for national, regional or international ecumenical agreement or schemes of co-operation and unity, as well as on questions touching Anglican Faith and Order
• to review developments in the areas of faith, order or unity in the Anglican Communion and among ecumenical partners, and to give advice to the Churches of the Anglican Communion or to the Instruments of Communion upon them, with the intention to promote common understanding, consistency, and convergence both in Anglican Communion affairs, and in ecumenical engagement
• to assist any Province with the assessment of new proposals in the areas of Unity, Faith and Order as requested.

2. The 15th Anglican Consultative Council (ACC-15) is meeting in Auckland, New Zealand between 27 October and 7 November. This is an advisory body comprising lay and ordained delegates from all Provinces that consider the present and future life and work of the Anglican Communion.

3. The Anglican Communion Office serves the Anglican Communion, comprising around 85 million members in 38 regional and national member churches around the globe in more than 165 countries. http://www.anglicancommunion.org/

4. For all the latest news, features, podcasts, videos, tweets and Facebook posts from the conference please visit http://www.aco.org/communion/acc/