wfn.org | "Full Communion" with Lutherans Becomes Official

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18-June-1998                      
GA98096 
 
        "Full Communion" with Lutherans Becomes Official, 
                           Plans Proceed 
 
               by Jerry Van Marter and Nancy Rodmad 
                                  
CHARLOTTE, N.C.--"Full communion" between the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) 
and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America became official June 17 when 
stated clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick declared official the vote of the 
presbyteries approving the accord.   
   Kirkpatrick called the full communion agreement, which also includes the 
Reformed Church in America and the United Church of Christ, "a major 
breakthrough."  He said the historic agreement "culminates a 30-year search 
to together find a way to the glory of God to express the unity of Christ's 
church." 
   At a news conference preceding the announcement, ELCA bishop Guy 
Edmiston of Harrisburg, Pa., said, "Out of our shared commitment to the 
gospel, we've come together after 450 years to say,  There is nothing that 
should divide us.  We can be in full communion.  This is a united witness 
we make to the world.'" Edmiston co-chaired the ecumenical committee that 
produced the full communion agreement. 
   The agreement opens up the eucharistic celebrations of each denomination 
to members of the others, commits the churches to closer cooperation in 
worship and mission and provides for the exchange of ministers between the 
churches in accordance with each's own polity and requirements.  The latter 
provision of full communion is key, Edmiston said. 
   "The agreement will be most felt at the local level when there's 
interchange of clergy," he noted.  "That will happen in urban as well as 
rural areas.  Small churches struggle to hire pastors -- joint parishes 
sharing pastors will make a major impact on all four churches." 
   Also present for the formal announcement of full communion were Terry 
White of the United Church of Christ and Dan Mattear of the Reformed Church 
in America.  The Presbyterians have been in full communion with those two 
churches for many years. 
   Edmiston outlined a number of ways in which Presbyterians and Lutherans 
have been working together in anticipation of full communion: joint 
orientation and training of overseas mission personnel, conversations 
between Christian educators of both churches about sharing curriculum 
materials, and talks between various mission agencies of both churches 
about joint projects. 
   No additional church or interchurch structures are envisioned as part of 
full communion, Edmiston said.  "There is definite agreement that there 
will not be another level of church leadership put in place," he said. "It 
will be done through the existing structures of the four denominations -- 
it is a matter of good dialogue and sharing staff who are already in 
place." 
   A celebratory worship service  is being planned for Oct. 4 in Chicago at 
Rockefeller Chapel on the campus of the University of Chicago.  In addition 
to the heads of communion of the four participating denominations, the 
world ecumenical movement will be represented at the celebration by Konrad 
Raiser, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, and Joan Brown 
Campbell, general secretary of the U.S. National Council of Churches. 

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