wfn.org | [ENS] Korea's Anglicans welcome Presiding Bishop,

["Matthew Davies" <mdavies@episcopalchurch.org>]

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Korea's Anglicans welcome Presiding Bishop, collaboration on reunification

Prayers offered at DMZ; church's spiritual bridge-building seen as model
for cooperation

By Bob Williams

ENS102605-01

[Episcopal News Service, Seoul] Peaceful reunification on the Korean
peninsula - achieved diplomatically without the threat of a U.S.
preemptive military strike - is a shared priority of the region's
Anglican leaders and Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, who conferred in
Seoul October 23-26.

"It is my hope that the U.S. government will adopt policies as you have
outlined those of the U.S. Episcopal Church," South Korea's President
Roh Moo-hyun told Griswold while welcoming the Presiding Bishop and his
delegation to Blue House, the president's official residence, October 25.

"As a U.S. ally, we are doing our best to support polices of the U.S.
government," Roh said, speaking through an interpreter. Yet at the same
time, "Korea does suffer when the U.S. adopts a tougher stance on the
Korean peninsula," he said.

Roh indicated that the Episcopal Church's position, articulated in a
written message from the Presiding Bishop to Korea's Anglican Church,
would assist in "instilling courage in the Korean people and moderating
the U.S.  position," he said.

Accompanied by Korea's Anglican Archbishop Matthew Chung and Seoul
Bishop-elect Francis Park, Griswold shared a copy of his message with
Roh, who commended the helpful 115-year ministry of local Anglicans who
have been strategic leaders in the democratization movement, education
and social services.

In his message, the Presiding Bishop stated his intention to emphasize
the Episcopal Church's commitment to reunification, affirmed in a 2003
General Convention resolution, "by bringing before the United States
government several concerns.

"I will urge my own government to reject the policy of preemption that
heightens tensions and threatens the well being of peoples both in
the north and south," Griswold noted. "As the two Koreas move forward
towards the goal of reunification, I will urge the United States to take
the following further steps:

     * support and promote a nonaggression pact that will move all
parties toward a comprehensive peace formally ending the 'state of
war' that has existed since 1953 by following through in the current
negotiations to pledge not to preemptively attack the DPRK in exchange
for the DPRK's abandonment of its nuclear weapons program

     * refrain from demonization of the DPRK in favor of supporting the
building of relations between the north and south which hold the promise
of peace and reunification

     * make every effort to invite the DPRK into the international
community as a full member so that the country can develop and pursue
internationally recognized norms and standards for its people to enjoy,
specifically to provide humanitarian relief and development assistance
to the DPRK including poverty alleviation, food aid, energy development
and transportation

     * assure access to all mechanisms for redress of grievances between
U.S. military personnel and Korean civilians in the ROK."

[The full text of the Presiding Bishop's message is posted at
http://episcopalchurch.org/3577_68809_ENG_HTM.htm ]

Prayers at DMZ

Griswold -- who is continuing a 14-day visit to Asia at the invitation of
Anglican and other Christian leaders in Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai, Hong Kong
and Taipei - said his commitment to reunification on the Korean peninsula
was renewed by conversations with Anglican leaders, and by their provision
for him to visit Korea's Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) on October 24.

"We ask that your reconciling love will heal divisions and bring peace,"
Griswold said in a prayer he was asked to offer at the DMZ's wooden
"Bridge of No Return" across which prisoners of war have passed under
heavily guarded conditions.

The Presiding Bishop identified the DMZ as "one of the few explosive
flashpoints lingering from the end of the Cold War."

Griswold and his wife, Phoebe, and their delegation of four senior staff
members from the Episcopal Church Center were joined on the visit by a
team of Korean Anglicans including Bishop Andrew Shin of the Diocese of
Daejeon and his wife.

The group's DMZ tour was led by U.S. Army Staff Seargeant Richard Henkes,
New Zealand Captain Dan Able, and U.S. Command Chaplain Samuel Boone.
The guides are among officers and soldiers collaborating in the United
Nations Command peacekeeping force based within the DMZ's peninsula-wide
span of 155 miles long and two miles wide along the 38th Parallel.

In a Temporary Shelter building that bridges the border, the Presiding
Bishop and his delegation stood on one side of the room in North Korea,
and on the other side, in the south. North Korean soldiers posted
just beyond the building observed the entire visit through continual
surveillance and interior audio systems.

The guides pointed out Freedom House, a structure built for visits of
family members divided by the DMZ, yet not yet used to date. Helpful
advances of shared economic projects currently in development were
also outlined.

"I have learned from you about hopeful contacts between the governments
of the north and south," Griswold observed in his written message to
the Church in Korea. "I note that both sides have made a commitment to
reunification, called the Sunshine Policy, and a number of exchange
visits have now taken place allowing families to make contacts and
build positive relations for the future. Plans for rail and road links
to increase communication are also hopeful signs. But I know much hard
work remains to be done."

Deepening Communion

Particular support for the ministries of the Korean Anglican Church in
its various peacemaking ministries were offered by the Presiding Bishop
and his delegation.

Phoebe Griswold affirmed the roles, concerns and ministries of women were
in conversations with Anglican sisters from across the Korea, pointing to
collaboration in the work of the Anglican Women's Empowerment Team and
the upcoming observance of the 50th anniversary of the United Nations
Committee on the Status of Women. The Korean Anglican Church has eight
women priests among its clergy serving some 50,000 members in three
dioceses: Seoul, Daejeon, and Pusan.

Exchanges for theological education, peace and justice ministries,
Anglican companion relationships, and provincial communication strategy
were among topics addressed in conversations shared by local church
leaders and Margaret Larom, the Episcopal Church's director of Anglican
and Global Relations, and the Rev. Canon Brian Grieves, the Episcopal
Church's director of peace and justice ministries.

Grieves was among three panelists who addressed reunification issues in an
October 25 afternoon forum at Seoul's landmark Romanesque Cathedral of St.
Mary and St. Nicholas. Fellow presenters included The Rev. Dr. Kim
Min-Woong, an EBS-TV news commentator and lecturer at Sungkonghoe
(Anglican) University, and the Rev. Dr. Park Jong-Wha, a Presbyterian
minister and the director of the international committee of the Korean
National Council of Churches.

Invited to offer his views on "Communion and Mission," the Presiding
Bishop told the forum of Bible studies in which he and his fellow Primate,
Korea's Archbishop Chung, heard Cambridge Professor David Ford observe
that "we in the Anglican Communion are in the process of becoming
a Communion."

"I have reflected often upon his words over these past years," Griswold
said, "and have come to see more and more that communion is not a human
construction but a gift from God....

"Through the blood of the cross the walls of division between Gentile and
Jew are broken down," the Presiding Bishop added. "And Gentile and Jew
here symbolized all national, ethnic, cultural, social divisions. It is
not that difference is done away with. It is reconciled - drawn together
in communion. Difference is therefore a gift - an expression of the
fullness of Christ present in all humanity..."

Differences of cultural contexts and theological understandings, including
views on human sexuality, were addressed by the Presiding Bishop, who
emphasized that "though we in the Episcopal Church live with strains and
tensions, as do other provinces in the Communion as well..., the mission
of the church, as described in the American Book of Common Prayer is the
restoration of all people to unity with God and one another in Christ."

Honored at an opening banquet attended by some 100 local church leaders,
the Presiding Bishop expressed his deep gratitude for the overwhelming
hospitality extended to him by Archbishop Chung, the welcoming committee,
and Chairman Kim Seung Youn of the Hanwha Group and its world-class
Seoul Plaza Hotel.

"We hope this is the first of many visits for you," Archbishop Chung
told the Griswolds as they prepared to depart. "Thank you for coming,
and for sharing in the partnership between our two churches."

-- Canon Robert Williams is the Episcopal Church's director of
communicaton.  He is part of the Presiding Bishop's delegation on the
Asia visit, as is Barbara Braver, assistant to the Presiding Bishop
for Communication.

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