Lutheran-Reformed 'Full Communion' Becomes Official

     CHARLOTTE, N.C. (ELCA) -- "Full communion" between the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) became official June 17 during the Presbyterian General Assembly when Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick declared official the vote of the presbyteries approving the accord.
     Kirkpatrick called the full communion agreement, which also includes the Reformed Church in America and the United Church of Christ, "a major breakthrough."  He said the historic agreement "culminates a 30-year search to together find a way to the glory of God to express the unity of Christ's church."  The ELCA approved full communion with the three Reformed churches at its churchwide assembly in August 1997.
     At a news conference preceding the announcement, the Rev. Guy S. Edmiston Jr., bishop of the ELCA's Lower Susquehanna Synod, Harrisburg, Pa., said, "Out of our shared commitment to the gospel, we've come together after 450 years to say, 'There is nothing that should divide us.  We can be in full communion.  This is a united witness we make to the world.'" Edmiston co-chaired the ecumenical committee that produced the full communion agreement.
     The agreement opens up the eucharistic celebrations of each denomination to members of the others, commits the churches to closer cooperation in worship and mission and provides for the exchange of ministers between the churches in accordance with each's own polity and requirements.  The latter provision of full communion is key, Edmiston said.
     "The agreement will be most felt at the local level when there's interchange of clergy," he noted.  "That will happen in urban as well as rural areas.  Small churches struggle to hire pastors -- joint parishes sharing pastors will make a major impact on all four churches."
     Also present for the formal announcement of full communion were Terry White of the United Church of Christ and Dan Mattear of the Reformed Church in America.  The Presbyterians have been in full communion with those two churches for many years.
     Edmiston outlined a number of ways in which Presbyterians and Lutherans have been working together in anticipation of full communion: joint orientation and training of overseas mission personnel, conversations between Christian educators of both churches about sharing curriculum materials, and talks between various mission agencies of both churches about joint projects.
     No additional church or interchurch structures are envisioned as part of full communion, Edmiston said.  "There is definite agreement that there will not be another level of church leadership put in place," he said. "It will be done through the existing structures of the four denominations -- it is a matter of good dialogue and sharing staff who are already in place."
     In another news conference, the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, general secretary of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., said the full impact of full communion between Lutheran and Reformed churches will be felt in local congregations.
     Local members need the churches to recognize each other formally, said Campbell.  Go to a Baptism, and you will find people from several denominations gathered.  "What people don't understand," she said, "is when the words are the same, why we can't be together."
     "Church by church by church we will finally come together," Campbell said.  To bring full communion home to the layperson it is important to recognize the ministers of the denominations.  It is important to share at table.
     A celebratory worship service  is being planned for Oct. 4 in Chicago at Rockefeller Chapel on the campus of the University of Chicago.  In addition to the heads of communion of the four participating denominations, the world ecumenical movement will be represented at the celebration by such people as Konrad Raiser, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, and Joan Brown Campbell, general secretary of the U.S. National Council of Churches.

[*Jerry Van Marter, coordinator of News Services for the Presbyterian
Church (U.S.A.), Louisville, Ky., and Nancy Rodman, director of the Service
and Resource Center, New Brunswick Presbytery, Tennent, N.J.]

For information contact:
Ann Hafften, Director (773) 380-2958 or NEWS@ELCA.ORG
http://www.elca.org/co/news/current.html