The Report of the Committee for Christian Unity

Proposed by the Chairman

Bishop John Neill, Bishop of Cashel

This is not the easiest of years to propose the Report of the Committee for Christian Unity. There is much good work undertaken, some of it appended to the Report of the Standing Committee — such as the responses to Dominus Jesus and to the ARCIC Report The Gift of Authority There is an important ecumenical development mentioned on page 280, namely the Decade for the Overcoming of Violence. This is not just another peace initiative - it is an international attempt to look at the roots of violence — as much in the home and family as on the streets of our cities — as much in what we call “humanitarian intervention” as in aggressive warfare. There are questions to be faced by us all, and this can and should be done ecumenically.

One of the good developments in the Committee for Christian Unity has been a definite period in each meeting when we look at ecumenical initiatives and developments. Much good news has been told of these initiatives, North and South, East and West. There is a great deal of good news to be told of local co-operation, local worshipping and praying together, and local study and witness.

It is these positive things that are being betrayed by some of the developments on the wider front. We made a robust response not so long ago to the document One

Bread, One Body. The Church of England Bishops have now done the same, and drawn attention to our response as well. We have responded strongly likewise to Dominus Iesus. Why are we having to be strong, and even controversial?

The answer is that there is a widespread misunderstanding as to what ecumenism is about. It is not just about listening to different viewpoints, and trying to get people together like a political round table conference. Ecumenism is not primarily about endless meetings and discussions, though it sometimes looks like that. Ecumenism is about expressing and making visible the communion that we have in Christ through our common Baptism. Beyond that indeed it draws in the whole inhabited earth the oikoumene which Christians see as being summed up in Christ.

The real enemy of true ecumenism is not those who want to keep to themselves. They are frequently painted to be its enemies, but they can yet be drawn into an ecumenism that expresses a true unity in Christ. The real damage is done to ecumenism by statements which “unchurch” other Christians. We all behaved that way in the past —but there has been a significant shift away from that in the last century. Only a couple of years ago, this Synod distanced itself from negative and hurtful statements towards other Christians (cf p.186 Synod Book of Reports). Nobody can claim to be ecumenical while telling other churches that they are not churches in the proper sense and that their clergy are not proper clergy and that they do not have the real Eucharist. We can affirm what we believe about our own respective churches and be thoroughly ecumenical. However, you cannot build up the Body of Christ by making negative statements about the deficiencies of other churches. It is against this trend that we, as much as the Church of England, have found that we must protest.

A remarkable step forward in real ecumenism was when Roman Catholics and Lutherans signed a Statement on Justification quite recently. The agreement itself may be seen as remarkable or not, but what is remarkable is that they were able to distance themselves formally from the mutual condemnations of a bygone age. This is the spirit that makes for real ecumenism, and it is the spirit that matches what is happening at the local level in practical ways throughout this land and elsewhere. The ecumenical spirit that is alive and well in so many places cannot take many more statements in the spirit of the two to which I have referred. It is with a heavy heart, but a sincere determination to keep alive the ecumenical vision that I propose this report.