CHURCH OF ENGLAND

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 57, 8 March 1932, Page 7

CHURCH OF ENGLAND

CONVOCATION OP CAN-

TERBURY

ISOLATION ENDING

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, 21st January. The ninth Convocation of Canterbury of tho present King's reign opened yesterday with a service in St. Paul's Cathedral. ( In the afternoon both tho Upper House and the Lower House met separately at Church House, Westminster. ' The Archbishop, presiding at the meeting of the Upper House, moved the Canterbury address to the King It referred to the difficulties and perplexities which confront the world and continued:— "We dare to believe that many of these, present difficulties will yet prove to•; have been as goads pressing the people forward to a new order of international fellowship. _"A world already so manifestly interdependent economically requires closer co-operation between Governments and. greater readiness on the part of the peoples to act together for the good of all. Civilisation must move in this direction lest it perish. "It is our fervent hope and prayer that the international conference about to Assemble will carry us further on this road, and we are confident that Your Majesty's Government .will exert.itself, to the uttermost therein to allay fears and suspicions, to' remove their causes to quicken mutual trust, and for the sake of both peace and honour' to secure, if it may be, some measure of general disarmament." lIJECBE-COMMUNIOM". Establishment of . inter-communion between the Church of England and the. Old Catholic Churches of the Continent was proposed in a resolution tabled by the Bishop of Gloucester for consideration in the Upper House. The resolution was in the following terms:— . "That this House approves of the following statements agreed on between the representatives of'-the Old Catholic Churches and the Churches of the Anglican Communion at a conference held at Bonn on 2nd July, 1931: (1) Each Communion recognises the catholicity and independence of the other and maintains its own; (2) each Communion agrees to admit members of the other Communion to participate in the Sacraments; (3) inter-communion does not require from either Communion the acceptance of all doctrinal opinion, sacramental devotion, or liturgical practice characteristic of tho other, but implies that each believes the other to hold all essentials of tho Christian Faith. And this House agrees to the establishment of inter-communion between the Church of England and the Old Catholics on these terms." The Bishop of Gloucester, presenting the resolution, said:— "The significance of this motion is that for the first time, I believe, in the history of the Church oft England a proposal is being made for the Church of England to enter into Communion with any other religious ■ body. It is a singular commentary on the insularity of the Church in this -country that wo have lived for so many hundreds of years in ecclesiastical isolation." The Bishop of Oxford seconded the resolution. The Bishop of Norwich said he thought "that it should be made clear that inter-communion did not moan union. BASED OiN" INDEPENDENCE. The Archbishop of Canterbury said that there was real historical significance in the "remarkable resolution" submitted. "So far as I know in the history of Convocation, this is the first occasion on which the Church of England has formally and by resolution of Convocation brought itself into a relation of Communion with another church. "It is true that after the Lambeth Conference of 1920 we entered into most friendly relations with the Church of Sweden and -established what was practically a relation of inter-commun-ion, interchange of episcopal acts, and the like. But so far as I know that was never formally and1 expressly ratified by Convocation." The inter-communion proposed, said the Archbishop, was based not on mere sentiment, but on the careful acceptanco of certain definite points of agreement on faith and order. '' That intercommunion," he said, "based on the independence of the various churches is precisely tho ideal for which I hope this Ecclesia Anglicana will always stand." After speaking further on the question of Christian unity, the Archbishop said, "That is a new horizon which we are putting before ourselves. We are looking forward to relations with other churches. "I should hope with regard to Sweden that we can be able to carry matters further, and that there will be gradually built up the horizon which seemed to bo -opened out at Lambeth, that there ivill be a gradual opening out of a great organism of churches throughout • the world, each fulfilling its own function and yet united together not by mere sentiment, but by definite unity of structure both in faith and, order." The Archbishop then put tho resolution to the Upper House, and declared it carried unanimously.