'Dear +ABC: you don't want tp play our game so we're going to stay home with our loaded dice.' These guys want more authority? Give us a break.

Probably time to stop calling ourselves a "Communion." We are not now, and perhaps never were. We are a federation of autonomous "national" churches sharing an Anglican history and ethos, trying to be the Church in our various locales and contexts. Not all bad actually.

"almost pre-determined to end up as just another gathering that again cannot bring about effective ecclesial actions..."

Well, exactly. That's what the Primates Meetings are supposed to be - consultative, not legislative. Isn't it?

Bill Dilworth

I'm not sure I quite agree with Bishop Epting -- I hope very much that TEC can continue to be a member of a worldwide Communion of national/regional churches sharing ministry and mission -- but if the survival of "The Anglican Communion" depends on submitting to GAFCON blackmail, then it simply isn't worth it. But I hope and expect that there will continue to be a Communion including not only a lot of Anglicans but also Lutherans (ELCA, Porvoo, etc.) and others who share a reformed catholic (if not specifically Anglican) tradition.

Bill Dilworth's on-target comment should remind us to go back a couple of days and re-read Chancellor Ronald Stevenson's excellent article:
http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/anglican_communion/resistance_to_centralizing_aut.html
which links to
http://blog.noanglicancovenant.org/2011/01/resistance-to-central-authority.html

Isn't the problem that some people have started to define "communion" as "Church," when in fact Bishop Epting's definition: "a federation of autonomous 'national' churches sharing an Anglican history and ethos" is exactly what I thought "communion" was meant to signify?

"what the Primates Meetings are supposed to be - consultative, not legislative. Isn't it?" -- That was my impression, yes. I seriously doubt anyone doesn't really comprehend the "If you give a mouse a cookie" lesson. The hubris apparent in certain parts of the AC is sometimes little short of stupefying, at least to *this* "Anglican"....

A "Communion" means that we are "in communion" with one another, theologically speaking. That doesn't mean agreeing with one another necessarily, but when Primates will not even receive Holy Communion together -- or in this case even come to meetings together -- there is no "Communion."

Declining to give/take Communion with one another certainly ought not be used as an good example/excuse for being a member of a more holy than thou first tier ¨pecking order¨ at The Anglican ¨Communion¨ Primates get-together in Dublin--if it is, and it appears to be, the most holy Gafcon ++group ought keep sitting it out in the vacuum of their own self-claimed purity until they ¨see the light¨ of Gods Commandments/Reality regarding HUMANKIND as a WHOLE set of real, and vulnerable like them, people!

We all know what ¨good character¨ represents, they certainly ¨preach¨ about it--it seems to me that many amongst the Global South contingent talk about ¨it¨ and try to represent ¨it¨ but may not have ¨it¨ ...actually many seem cowardly/shameful and irresponsible in the face of all the real acts of destruction that have been done by them throughout the Anglican Communion...this isn´t about the personal character of Female Clergy/Bishops or TEC Bishops in California or New Hampshire...this is basically about the depth of ¨aurthentic¨ sisterly and brotherly love at The Body of Christ.

"...when Primates will not even receive Holy Communion together -- or in this case even come to meetings together -- there is no 'Communion.'" Alas, Bishop Epting, you are quite right about that.

Well, these autonomous national churches contain more than just their Primates. There is still a good deal of cooperation and real communion between individuals, parishes, and dioceses of TEC and those of the GAFCON provinces, in spite of the misadventures of their leaders. It would be a shame if the communion we continue to share at those levels were to be destroyed by the overreaching desire of some of the Primates and their minions to be an Anglican Curia.

Just a little history from the 19th century these guys need to revisit....

1866 – beginning of Lambeth Conferences: ABC issues an invitation ‘to all the bishops in communion with the Church of England to assemble at such time and place…’

first invitations went out 22 February 1867: to ‘the Indian and Colonial Episcopate to meet with the ABC and the Home Bishops for brotherly communion and conference.… Such a meeting would not be competent to make declarations or lay down definitions on points of doctrine. But united worship and common counsels would greatly tend to maintain practically the unity of the faith: whilst they would bind us in straiter bonds of peace and brotherly charity.’

1867 Resolutions 1, 2 establish Lambeth Conference ‘for the purpose of maintaining brotherly intercommunion, that all cases of establishment of new Sees, and appointment of new Bishops, be notified to all Archbishops and Metropolitans, and all Presiding Bishops of the AC….’

1867 Resolution 4 made diocesan synods subordinate to provincial or national synods in their authority to make legislative decisions

1867 Resolution 8: ‘Churches of our Colonial Empire and the Missionary Churches beyond them in the closest union with the Mother-Church, receive and maintain without alteration the standards of Faith and Doctrine… each province should have the right to make such adaptations and additions to the services of the Church as its peculiar circumstances may require.’

1878: Committee Report for LC, 1878: for ‘the maintenance of union among the Churches of our Communion, … no bishop or other clergyman of any other Church should exercise his functions within that Diocese without the consent of the bishop thereof.’

1878, territorial diocese should have a single bishop was not an easy principle to hold onto in the early stages of mission and so the LC 1878 set out practical rules but they were not meant for either for countries under English or American rule.

1886 Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral: A Communion of Communions (BCP 876)

1888: Lambeth Conference is not a Council or Synod, struggled with balancing the need for a common faith and order in a single Communion, with the proper pluriformity which respects differences between cultures and from age to age.

Perhaps we could be said to share a "real, but imperfect communion" as we say we do with the Roman Catholic Church in certain ecumenical documents.

But, as sad as this makes me, it may be that the Roman Catholic Church is the only global Communion now. Certainly every Roman Catholic bishop will receive Holy Communion from ever other Roman Catholic bishop (and, by extension, other clergy and lay people would as well).

This has not been true in Anglicanism at least since 1976 when some would not receive communion from women priests and still today even men ordained by women bishops cannot be licensed to celebrate the Eucharist in England.

We are more like the Orthodox now (ironic, isn't it?). They have never called themselves the "Orthodox Communion' but only "Orthodox churches." Some Eastern Orthodox will not receive Communion from one another, and certainly many will not from the so-called "Oriental Orthodox."

Let's just be honest. We are a federation sharing a "real, but imperfect communion" but can still do mission and ministry together and do share some elements of an "Anglican ethos" unique among the Christian churches.