Archbishop Foley Beach addresses Provincial Council 2016
from ACNA press release:
[…] Since we have met last year, we continue to see our discussion with other Christian bodies grow and deepen. I could hire Bishop Ray Sutton full-time, and he still would not be able to keep up with it all.
To use the terminology of the His Holiness, Patriarch Kirill, of the Russian Orthodox Church, we are part of a “new ecumenism” which is spreading through the Christian Church. With so many Churches abandoning Scriptural and Historical theology and morality, those who are keeping to the Apostolic Faith are finding each other and building partnerships.
While Bishop Ray Sutton will have more to say, I would like to highlight just a few points regarding our ecumenical relationships.
The first is our relationship with the Orthodox Church in America and the Russian Orthodox Church. I was privileged to lead a delegation to Moscow last August at the invitation of His Holiness, Patriarch Kirill to meet with him and Metropolitan Hilarion. They made a point of saying to us that this was the beginning of official ecumenical discussions between our Churches, and that we were the Church they were recognizing us as the Anglicans in North America with whom they would have ecumenical discussions. It was a tremendous demonstration of unity.
The second is that I participated with our team in discussions with the Missouri Synod Lutheran and Canadian Lutheran Church and participated in a Faith and Freedom Symposium this past February at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis. We issued a joint Statement entitled “On Closer Acquaintance” which said in effect that we have a number of differences, but our common theology is worth continuing discussions. The Missouri Synod Lutherans do not engage in many ecumenical conversations and so the fact that we are in conversation together is highly significant.
The third is our relationship with the Free Church of England. During this council, you will be asked to affirm an agreement I have signed on our behalf regularizing the relationship between our two Churches. The Free Church of England and its Mission in Germany and Croatia have been a sister Church of the Reformed Episcopal Church which is one of our founding entities and a vital part of the Anglican Church in North America. It is time to formally recognize each others’ churches.
I want to thank Bishop Ray Sutton, Bishop Coadjutor of the REC Diocese of the Mid-America Diocese, who is not only our Provincial Dean, but our Dean of Ecumenical Affairs. He is doing a wonderful job, and he too, is a volunteer.
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