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Anglican - Lutheran International Commission Communique

Posted On: May 19, 2008 3:24 PM | Posted By : Admin ACO
Related Categories: ACO - Ecumenical

ACNS: http://www.aco.org/acns/news.cfm/2008/5/19/ACNS4405

> Chennai, India 28 April - 5 May 2008

The Third Anglican - Lutheran International Commission (ALIC) held its
third meeting at Chennai, India, between 28 April and 5 May 2008, under
the co-chairmanship of the Most Reverend Fred Hiltz, Primate of Canada,
and of Reverend Dr. Cameron Harder, Lutheran Theological Seminary,
Saskatoon, Canada, in the absence of Bishop Thomas Nyiwé, Cameroon, who
was unable to attend.

The meeting was hosted by The Lutheran World Federation, in co-operation
with the United Evangelical Lutheran Church in India. Its Executive
Secretary, Reverend Dr. A. G. Augustine Jeyakumar, welcomed the group at
an opening dinner, and the UELCI was host for an excursion to the temple
sites at Mamallapuram and dinner there. On Sunday 4 May commission
members attended the Broadway Congregation of The Arcot Lutheran Church
and visited Chennai sites associated with the memory of the Apostle
Thomas. On Ascension Day, the commission worshipped in the chapel of the
Gurukul Lutheran Theological College and Research Institute and heard
about ecumenical education in this setting from members of its faculty:
Reverend Dr. Ponniah Manoharan, Director and Professor in Christian
Ministry, Reverend Dr. Jacob Thomas, Professor of Systematic Theology,
and Reverend Dr. David Udayakumar, Professor of Mission and Ecumenism.
The commission was also welcomed by Bishop V. Devasahayam, Bishop in
Madras of the Church of South India, who guided the group in a tour of
St. George's Cathedral and welcomed it to a programme of dance by
children from the Cathedral's Bible schools. He also challenged the
commission and its communions to take seriously the injustices caused by
the persistence of caste in Indian society.

The commission received reports from various regions where Anglicans and
Lutherans live in covenanted relationship. It welcomed the re-activation
of the All Africa Anglican - Lutheran Commission (AAALC), which had met
in Johannesburg in December 2007, and received a report from the
co-chairs, the Right Reverend Musonda Mwamba and Bishop Ndanganeni
Phaswana.   The commission sent greetings to Nippon Sei Ko Kai, a member
of the Anglican Communion, and to the Japan Evangelical Lutheran Church,
a member of the LWF, as they gather together for worship on Pentecost
Sunday; commission member Reverend Professor Renta Nishihara will speak
about the dialogue between the communions.

The commission's work in Chennai continued discussions begun in earlier
meetings: the character of the visible unity the commission seeks to
commend, the developing ecclesiologies of the two communions, their
understandings of ordained ministry in the context of the life of the
Church, and the centrality of diakonia to the Church's mission.
Reflection on diakonia was enriched by presentations from Reverend Dr.
Kjell Nordstokke, Director of the Department for Mission and Development
at the LWF, and the Reverend David Peck, the Archbishop of Canterbury's
Secretary for International Development; they reviewed the work
undertaken by the two communions in these areas and asked about ways in
which this work might be helpful to the quest for greater visible unity.

At this meeting discussion centred on the shape and direction of the
commission's report, which is mandated to make recommendations about
ways in which the two communions can move toward more visible unity. The
commission recognised diakonia and communion as the central elements of
their discernment. The challenge of proclamation and service embodied in
diakonia, modelled on the ministry of Jesus, promises a fresh and
dynamic entry point into questions of ministry and unity in the service
of the Gospel.

We give thanks to God for the witness of the UELCI and the Church of
South India in their country, and for the ministry of diakonia in which
they engage. We were profoundly moved by their accounts of societal
discrimination against Dalits which the churches' ministry seeks to
transform, and resolve to remember these issues as we return to our own
contexts. We pray that God will bless and guide all we met here, and
also the life of both communions as we seek to proclaim the Gospel in
active service and mission.

The commission plans to meet again between 18-26 May 2009 at a venue to
be identified by the LWF.

> The members of the commission are:

> Anglicans:

The Most Revd Fred Hiltz, Canada (Co-Chair)

The Revd. Dr Charlotte Methuen, Germany and United Kingdom
The Rt. Revd Musonda T. S. Mwamba, Botswana
The Revd. Professor Renta Nishihara, Japan (unable to be present)
The Very Revd. William H. Petersen, USA
The Revd Dr Cathy Thomson, Australia
The Revd Canon Gregory K. Cameron, Anglican Communion Office
(Co-Secretary)

> Consultants:

The Revd Canon Alyson Barnett-Cowan, Canada

The Revd Dr. Günter Esser, the Old Catholic Churches of the Union of
Utrecht, Germany

> Lutherans:

Rev. Dr. Cameron R. Harder, Canada (Acting Co-Chair)
Professor Dr. Kirsten Busch Nielsen, Denmark
Rev. Angel Furlan, Argentina
Landesbischof Jürgen Johannesdotter, Germany
Rev. Dr. Thomas Nyiwé, Cameroon (Co-Chair; unable to be present)
Rev. Helene Tärneberg Steed, Sweden and Ireland
Professor Dr. Kathryn Johnson, Lutheran World Federation (Co-Secretary)

> Consultants:

> Professor Dr. Kenneth G. Appold, USA
> Bishop Ndanganeni P. Phaswana, South Africa

Administrative support was provided by Ms. Sybille Graumann of The
Lutheran World Federation and the Reverend Terrie Robinson of the
Anglican Communion Office.

The Commission was established by the Anglican Consultative Council and
The Lutheran World Federation to continue the dialogue between Anglicans
and Lutherans on the world-wide level which has been in progress since
1970. ALIC is building upon the work reflected in The Niagara Report
(1987), focusing on the mission of the church and the role of the
ordained ministry, The Diaconate as Ecumenical Opportunity (1995), and
most recently Growth in Communion (2002), the report of the Anglican -
Lutheran International Working Group (ALIWG), which reviewed the
extensive regional agreements which have established close relations
between Anglican and Lutheran churches in several parts of the world.

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