ENS confirms the report that the Archbishop of Canterbury told the presiding bishop not to wear a mitre when she served as president of a service this past Sunday at Southwark Cathedral London:
She did so in order to comply with a “statement” from Lambeth Palace, the London home of Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, that said “that I was not to wear a mitre at Southwark Cathedral,” Jefferts Schori told the Executive Council June 16 on the first day of its three-day meeting here.
Jefferts Schori made her remarks to council during a “private conversation” session attended by council members and church center staff, and later told ENS it could report her remarks.
More extraordinarily,
In the week before her visit, the presiding bishop said Lambeth pressured her office to provide evidence of her ordination to each order of ministry.
“This is apparently a requirement of one of their canons about the ministry of clergy from overseas,” she said.
The presiding bishop said both the ordination and mitre issues put the Very Rev. Colin Slee, Southwark’s dean, “in a very awkward position.”
And she called the requirements “nonsense” and said “it is bizarre; it is beyond bizarre.”
No word on whether picture ID was required.