wfn.org | Episcopal and Lutheran seminaries sign

[ENS.parti@ecunet.org (ENS)]

historic covenant
February 10, 1998
Episcopal News Service
James Solheim, Director
(212) 922-5385
jsolheim@dfms.org

98-2080
Episcopal and Lutheran seminaries sign 
historic covenant

(ENS) As a sign of growing cooperation between the two churches, seminaries of 
the Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) have 
signed a historic covenant, pledging expanded cooperation and efforts to remove 
obstacles to full communion.
	A Concordat of Agreement that would have established full communion passed 
by an overwhelmingly margin at the Episcopal Church's General Convention last 
summer but fell six votes short of the required two-thirds vote at the ELCA's Churchwide 
Assembly. A writing team with three participants from each church is now revising the 
Concordat
	The covenant, signed in New York on January 12, defines 13 areas of cooperation 
between the General Theological Seminary in New York and the Lutheran Theological 
Seminary in Philadelphia. Included are: a priority in developing Hispanic leadership; a 
plan to make it easier for students to study at either school to meet some of the 
requirements for ordination; sharing academic and spiritual resources; joint academic and 
social justice programs; exchange of faculty members; and joint publication ventures.
	"This agreement in many ways is the natural outcome of the consistent 
commitment General's faculty has to the growing dialog between our churches," said 
Bishop G.P. Mellick Belshaw, acting dean and president of General Seminary. 
	"The covenant is a giant step forward in the evolving relationship between two 
fine theological schools," said Dr. Robert G. Hughes, president of Lutheran Seminary. 
"The objectives articulated-theological unity, mutual enrichment and mission-are both 
commendable and essential in this challenging time." He said that the "ties that bind and 
strengthen our seminaries will serve to draw our church bodies closer to the realization of 
the Concordat." Presiding Bishop H. George Anderson of the ELCA called the objectives 
"both comprehensive and wide-ranging in scope."
	Lutheran Seminary is one of eight ELCA seminaries and has an enrollment of 
about 400, enrolling its largest class last fall in its 133-year history. General Seminary, 
the oldest in the Episcopal Church, was founded in 1817 and has a current enrollment of 
180.