18 September 2023
The Secretary General of the Anglican Communion, the Right Revd Anthony Poggo, will make official visits to Poland, the USA and Singapore this month. Bishop Anthony will take part in the 13th Assembly of the Lutheran World Federation, and preach at a Radical Vocations Conference before attending the provincial Synod of the Church of the Province of South East Asia.
The Lutheran World Federation is a family of 150 member churches in 99 countries. Its 13th Assembly, which began last week in Krakow, Poland, brings together some 355 delegates from Lutheran Churches for a series of meetings under the theme ““One Body, One Spirit, One Hope.” Bishop Anthony Poggo is one of a number of ecumenical guests invited to attend the Assembly. Tomorrow (Tuesday) he will take part in an ecumenical panel discussion on the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification – a groundbreaking ecumenical text which is said to have resolved the key theological disagreement between Lutherans and Catholics that led to the Reformation.
While in Krakow, Bishop Anthony will meet the LWF General Secretary, the Revd Dr Anne Burghardt. A number of Anglican and Lutheran Churches around the world are in full communion with each other.
After the LWF Assembly, Bishop Anthony will travel to Texas in the USA, for the “RadVo Conference” at the Church of the Incarnation in Dallas. The RadVo Conference is a biennial event exploring “Radical Vocation”. It brings together church leaders, seminary students, and clergy across the globe to hear from and engage with theologians as they “explore together what it looks like to confront the present by embracing truth, navigating culture, crisis, and conflict.” Bishop Anthony will preach at Solemn Evensong and take part in a discussion on “Unity and Difference in the Anglican Communion.”
He will then travel to Singapore for the provincial synod of the Church of the Province of South East Asia.
“I am excited about the events of the next two weeks. Firstly, my visit to our Lutheran brothers and sisters is a strong sign of ever-growing unity between Anglicans and Lutherans, as seen by the recent full-communion agreement between Lutherans and Episcopalians in Germany. And from there I will come face to face with the diversity of Anglicans around the world, with the RadVo Conference bringing together Anglicans from around the world; and also the Synod of South East Asia – an Anglican province that serves many very different countries and which is renowned for its work in church planting and discipleship.”