The fourth Junges Forum Anglikanismus was held on 15-17 November 2024. The seminar was entitled “Anglican Ecumenism” (chosen by last year’s participants) and looked at the contribution of Anglican theology and Anglican church life to the ecumenical idea. Anglican churches have played a central role in the ecumenical movement of the 19th and 20th centuries, for instance through their missionary endeavour and in the formation of ecumenical bodies like the World Council of Churches.
We were most hospitably welcomed in the Old Catholic Church St Cyprian where we spent two days listening to presentations, discussing theology and analyzing texts. We were thirteen participants hailing from various churches: German Protestant “Landeskirchen”, Old Catholics and from both Anglican dioceses in Europe (the Church of England and the Episcopal Church of the USA). Unfortunately six registrants (incl. two speakers) had to cancel due to illness between two weeks and two hours before the seminar. A special thanks to our Megan Kramer who, at very short notice, stood in for one of the two speakers gone missing.
Megan kicked off the proceedings by introducing us to her research on the most important single issue in many ecumenical debates (not only) with Anglican churches, i.e. The understanding of the ordained office and the role of the episcopacy in Anglican ecumenical dialogue with the focus on the understanding of Apostolic Succession.
The Revd Dr Christopher Wells (Director of Unity, Faith and Order at the Anglican Communion Office) joined us digitally from London to speak about the The Anglican Communion as an ecumenical model. How to live in communion despite theological differences and tensions – a topic chosen in view of the many disagreements that have for so long threatened to tear apart churches around the world, notably the Anglican Communion, mainly over issues of sexual ethics. The difficulties of navigating the responsibilities church leadership faces had been illustrated only three days earlier when the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, had been forced to resign over the handling of an abuse scandal in England decades earlier.
The evening took us to a “Lichtvesper” in the Old Catholic Namen-Jesu Kirche after which Diakon Stefan Kandels introduced us to the life of the Old Catholic congregation.
A specifically Anglican way of “doing ecumenism” are agreements on communion with churches of other denominations. These agreements establish various degrees of proximity. The best known in Germany are the Meißen Agreement (1988, linking EKD and the Church of England) and the Porvoo Agreement (1992, linking various Anglican churches with Scandinavian and Baltic Lutheran churches in Europe). But there are more around the world, involving various Anglican churches (e.g. the Episcopal Churches in the USA and Canada with Lutherans and Moravians in North America). These agreements often include full church communion without incorporating one church into another or establishing full doctrinal agreement in all matters.
The very first of these, the so-called “Bonn Agreement”, signed in 1931 between the Church of England (soon extended to the entire Anglican Communion) and the Old Catholic Churches of the Union of Utrecht, was the first such agreement in ecumenical history. This was the reason for this year’s choice of venue in Bonn. Andreas Krebs, Professor für Alt-Katholische und Ökumenische Theology at the Alt-Katholische Seminar of Bonn university introduced us to The Bonn Agreement and the Church Communion between the Church of England and the Old Catholic Church.
In the afternoon we were joined from Rwanda by Jered Kalimba, bishop of the Shyogwe Diocese of the Anglican Church of Ruanda, giving an overview of the history of Anglicanism and ecumenical relations in Rwanda.
In our last session we were once more led by Megan Kramer who returned to the topic of how the ordained office is understood in Protestant tradition (the issue of ordination – who, how and for what purposes? – is one of the practical consequences of the question of Apostolic Succession). We analysed some theological texts of the Leuenberg Fellowship and EKD and found that there is still a lot of work to do before we shall arrive at a common understanding of the meaning and the practicalities of ordination in our various churches.
On Sunday morning, as is now customary for the Junge Forum we all flocked to the St Boniface Anglican Church in Bonn-Beuel where we worshipped and mingled with the small but warm-hearted congregation who even provided real home-made cake.
A committee was formed from among the participants to prepare for next year’s Junges Forum which will happen around the same time of the year. Date and place to be confirmed. Watch this space!
Kai Funkschmidt, November 2024
