Archbishop: Communion Faith and Order Commission Gains Momentum

http://www.livingchurch.org/news/news-updates/2008/7/25/archbishop-communion-faith-and-order-commission-gains-momentum

[The Living Church] 26 Jul 2008--If the Anglican Communion is to survive, another Instrument of Unity may need to be created, according to a paper prepared by the Windsor Continuation Group.

“We commend the suggestion for the setting up of an Anglican Communion Faith and Order Commission that could give guidance on the ecclesiological issues raised by our current ‘crisis’,” the group wrote in a working paper distributed on July 25.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams established the six-member group earlier this year to help implement some of the longer-term recommendations made in the Windsor Report. Archbishop Williams said the plan was a very preliminary one, but that it seemed to have broad support among bishops during a Lambeth Conference media briefing this afternoon.

“There is a strong feeling that we need another kind of structure in the Communion that will be a ‘clearinghouse,’ as I want to put it, for some of these issues, and I think there is quite a head of steam behind that,” he said. “I’m actually quite enthusiastic about that.

“It’s not as if we can just coexist without any impact on one another as Anglican churches,” Archbishop Williams continued. “There have to be protocols and conventions by which we recognize one another as churches. The difficulties that we currently face have a lot to do with that recognition.”