Wednesday, August 23, 2006

an interview with the archbishop of canterbury

Interesting. Hopeful. Read comments here. Read it all here.

Q: What will happen to the six or more dioceses in America that have asked for alternative primatial oversight?

++Rowan: "I don't know yet. We are working intensively on what this might mean. I don't want to make up church law on the back of an envelope, because in fact it's a very complicated situation.''

Q: It would constitute a split in the American church.

++Rowan: "Indeed, and quite a serious one. And I have great concern for the vast majority of Episcopal Christians in the US who don't wish to move away from the Communion at all, but who don't particularly want to join a separatist part of their Church either. I want to give them time to find what the best way is.''

Q: But these dioceses and the group around them won't hold out in ECUSA for too long.

++Rowan: ''No, and it is perhaps a rather larger group than some have presented it as being. I know too that if Canterbury doesn't help, there will be other provinces that are very ready to help. And I don't especially want to see the Anglican Church becoming like the Orthodox Church, where in some American cities you see the Greek Orthodox Church, the Russian Orthodox Church and the Romanian Orthodox Church. I don't want to see in the cities of America the American Anglican Church, the Nigerian Anglican Church, the Egyptian Anglican Church and the English Anglican Church in the same street.''

1 comment:

Ecgbert said...

++Cantuar has a point that there shouldn't be more than one bishop of the same faith in one place but of course there's nothing wrong with parish churches by and for different ethnicities in one city.

That there is more than one Orthodox bishop per American city is an historical accident thanks to the Russian Revolution, nothing to do with faith or morals.

(Just like the Anglican Communion is an historical accident - the Anglican Church was only supposed to be the part of the Catholic Church that happened to be in England. It ended up a communion unto itself because of the British Empire.)

The issue with the Anglicans is: do ECUSA and the Global South bishops really share the same faith and thus should ECUSA remain in the Anglican Communion?