Bishop Gives Views To Special Synod

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31677, 13 May 1968, Page 12

Bishop Gives Views To Special Synod

When discussing church union several things needed to be held in balance, and, if necessary, in tension, the Bishop of Christchurch (the Rt Rev. W. A. Pyatt) said when opening a special synod of the diocese of Christchurch called to discuss church union on Saturday.

More than 200 Anglican clergy and laymen, observers fr-'m the other negotiating churches and from the Roman Catholie Church attended the synod. “We need to maintain the faith and practice of our fathers in our church, and yet to make certain that these are still relevant and are the weapons the church needs in this century,” said Bishop Pyatt. “We need to love and revive what the Anglican Church has meant in God’s mission, yet to be ready, if necessary, to see her die to come alive again. We need to be tolerant in seeking ways of including great variety in practice and in methods of expressing belief and worship, yet to be firm in maintaining the cause of truth. “We have many different ideas about Church union,” said Bishop Pyatt “Some of you will come from traditions which make it hard to accept any idea of Church union: others in theory favourable to the concept, will not like the present concept; others, especially in our great, established, suburban middle-class strongholds and in some provincial parishes, see no great need for union.

“Others of you are in new housing estate parishes, or in country districts, or in industrial areas where the practical demands of everyday existence make church union an urgent necessity. “Ali of us, I suppose, are glad and proud to be Anglicans—you do not wish to be anything else—and if church union must come, then you are hoping to see that the new church will be familial to us.

“If Jesus was able to bind into one team, men as disparate as Matthew, the quisling, and Simon, the nationalist, it should not be beyond His power to display to men the way to unity in the Church. “If His church is to con-

tinue to be His chosen method to preach Christ to the world, it must surely do it with one voice, and it is about time we did. If it is to bring His reconciliation to the world, it must be reconciled within itself —these are the motives behind the present discussions between the five churches,” he said. No-one saw a world-wide, monolithic structure, said Bishop Pyatt. However, throughout the world there was a call for a series of local churches, each organised on a national scale, and each seeking full relationships with other similar churches.

If, in each church, could be found something like the suggestions in the Lambeth Quadrilateral, there should not be very much difficult;' In estab Ushing these relationships. “Both internationally, and within our own discussions, this will take time, love and tolerance, as we seek not only to unite among ourselves, but also to retain or achieve concord with the Church of England and the great communion of Rome and the East.”

Bishop Pyatt said the negative aspects of church union had been covered and the positive aspects were to be displayed. “We should either stop now, or else proceed to examine much more enthusiastically the proposals that are to come in the future,” he said.