Earlier this week came the announcement that the Church of Denmark had finally, after more than a decade, agreed to sign the Porvoo agreement which has had the effect of creating a full communion relationship between the Church of England and the Scandinavian Lutheran Churches. According to the Christianity Today, the hold up was the Church of England’s reluctance to ordain women to all orders of Christian ministry.
The details of the report say:
“Although the Church of Denmark participated in discussions leading up to the Porvoo Agreement some 15 years ago, it never signed the document because of differences over the status of women.
With women now being accepted into the priesthood by the Anglican Churches in the Porvoo Communion, the Church in Denmark announced last year that there was no longer any barrier to becoming a full member.
The Church called the signing of the Agreement momentous. It said that an era of ‘reticence’ had been replaced by a ‘more open and trusting atmosphere’ between the Churches.”
Read the full article here.
The Church Times has a piece here on the service itself. It has a quote from the address of by Dr. Stevenson, the retired bishop of Portsmouth:
“Porvoo is about sharing in a common mission in the Christian heartlands of northern Europe, where each church represented here this weekend has a long Christian tradition but now lives in a much-changed world, with diverse communities, new ethnic groups, other faiths, and the sheer effects of secularism. . . But in our common North European history, there may well be lessons to learn from each other, positive and negative, about how to be faithful disciples in a much changed world.”
Interestingly enough, the decision by the Church of England to move forward on the question of the ordination of women priests to the bishopric has created what is described as “incandescent” anger in the opponents of women’s ordination within the Church of England who are furious with the makeup of the working group created to enable necessary changes:
Prebendary David Houlding, a leading member of the Catholic Group, said on Wednesday: “We are all so angry and dismayed. It’s clear from the compilation of this group that there is to be no honoured place in the Church of England for traditionalists — that we are not wanted. This group is set up to fail before it begins. It’s one [Bishop Martin Warner] against seven.
“To put two members of the revision committee and no members of the Catholic Group — the audacity of it. I think it’s a disaster.