Looking for a Ship

Dunwoody, Georgia

The buoyant mood continued here today as the various groups completed their individual business meetings.  Old friends greeted one another, and new friends were made and bonds formed.  There were many young clergy and seminarians in the crowd, an encouraging sign in a movement that many feared was “growing grey”.

The much anticipated banquet speech by Fr. George Clendenin (APCK) did not disappoint.  He took the crowd back 40 years to the Affirmation of St. Louis of which he was an architect and drove home the point that continuing Anglicanism did not form because of liturgical innovation, prayer book changes or even the growing wave of revisionism.  It began with the Episcopal church’s simple heresy of purported women’s ordination to the apostolic priesthood.  While the other aspects swirled around and formed a part of the 1977 separation, the attempt to reorder a scriptural and ontological reality was at the core, and the results have been sadly borne out over the ensuing years.

Fr. Clendenin pulled no punches as he recounted the heroes of the movement, and the problem of personalities that have resulted in the unhappy divisions. of the last 40 years. Clendenin called for a reordering of priorities toward the incarnate Christ and proclaiming the unbroken faith once-delivered in a world increasingly opposed to that message.  The crowd erupted in applause at several points, particularly when he raised the problems of cleresy especially at the episcopal level, and the speech (which we hope to reproduce tomorrow or Saturday) concluded with a thunderous standing ovation.

Tomorrow will bring a joint plenary session among all of the assembled groups, a solemn pontifical Mass and the signing of the long-awaited concordat of intercommunion reproduced below.  Tonight please pray for the unity of the Church.

Agreement Establishing Full Communion (Communio in sacris)

Among

The Anglican Catholic Church

 The Anglican Church in America

 The Anglican Province of America

The Diocese of the Holy Cross

We the undersigned, belonging to and holding the faith of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, as received by the Church of England in the days of her orthodoxy, and as Continued by Anglicans in North America in response to the call of the Congress of Saint Louis in 1977, agree to the following:

Ø We acknowledge each other to be orthodox and catholic Anglicans in virtue of our common adherence to the authorities accepted by and summarized in The Affirmation of Saint Louis in the faith of the Holy Tradition of the Undivided Catholic Church and of the seven Ecumenical Councils.

Ø We recognize in each other in all essentials the same faith; the same sacraments; the same moral teaching; and the same worship; likewise we recognize in each other the same Holy Orders of bishops, priests, and deacons in the same Apostolic Succession, insofar as we all share the episcopate conveyed to the Continuing Churches in Denver in January 1978 in response to the call of the Congress of Saint Louis; therefore,

Ø We welcome members of all of our Churches to Holy Communion and parochial life in any and all of the congregations of our Churches; and,

Ø We pledge to pursue full, institutional, and organic union with each other, in a manner that respects tender consciences, builds consensus and harmony, and fulfils increasingly our Lord’s will that his Church be united; and,

Ø We pledge also to seek unity with other Christians, including those who understand themselves to be Anglican, insofar as such unity is consistent with the essentials of catholic faith, order, and moral teaching.

The Rt. Rev. Brian R. Marsh    The Most Rev. Mark Haverland

The Rt. Rev. Walter Grundorf   The Rt. Rev. Paul Hewett