wfn.org | ENGLAND: HOUSE OF BISHOPS DISMISS LAY PRESIDENCY

[a.whitefield@quest.org.uk]

Title:ENGLAND: HOUSE OF BISHOPS DISMISS LAY PRESIDENCY
July 1, 1997
ANGLICAN COMMUNION NEWS SERVICE
Canon Jim Rosenthal, Director of Communications
Anglican Communion Office
London, England

[97.6.4.2]

ENGLAND: HOUSE OF BISHOPS DISMISS LAY PRESIDENCY

(CT) The House of Bishops of the Church of England has dismissed the
idea that lay people can preside at Holy Communion.

In a report just published, entitled, Eucharistic Presidency, the
bishops affirm the distinctive ministry of the ordained.  This report is
put forward for study and reflection and will be debated at the
forthcoming General Synod of the Church on 13 July. The report is the
Bishops' response to a request made by the General Synod in 1994 for a
statement about the theology of the Eucharist and the respective roles
of the clergy and the laity within it.

The bishops state that there is an "essential link", between leadership
in the community, for which a bishop or priest has been chosen, and
presiding at the Eucharist.  The report concludes that there are strong
theological arguments for  sustaining the inherited tradition that the
person who presides at the Eucharist needs to be an episcopally ordained
priest.