Meeting with the Lutherans

A fully integrated meeting with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC) is planned to take place at the Anglican Church of Canada’s General Synod 2013 in Ottawa.

Lutheran National Bishop Susan Johnson and Archbishop Fred Hiltz, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, jointly announced plans for the synod, and the intention to study the feasibility of together developing a shared national office in Ottawa sometime in the future.

What will the Anglican General Synod and Lutheran Convention look like in three years time? It should include joint worship, Bible study and keynote speakers. “We hope to be doing most things together,” said Archbishop Hiltz, “and only doing those things apart which our constitutions absolutely require.”

“A massive amount of planning will have to go into that gathering but it’s going to be an exciting process,” said Bishop Johnson.

The idea of establishing a shared national office has come from the joint Lutheran-Anglican Commission. Ottawa is under consideration, the two revealed. The head office of the Anglican Church of Canada is currently in Toronto; the Lutheran national office is in Winnipeg.

“We would both have to move to form a new office,” said Bishop Johnson, and there are advantages to being in the national capital. “Our churches need to be there because governments aren’t listening to us any more,” she added.

Christ Church Anglican Cathedral in Ottawa is considering developing property downtown, and building a “green” environmentally friendly building. The proposal will be presented to a joint meeting of the Anglican Council of General Synod and the National Church Council of the Lutherans in the near future.

The two churches have been in full communion since coming together at a joint meeting in Waterloo, Ont. in 2001. The primate and Dean Peter Wall of the diocese of Niagara, chair of the Canadian’s joint Lutheran-Anglican Commission, listed ways since that cooperation has increased. “It is a relationship that helps us to nurture each other,” said Dean Walls.

Bishop John Chapman of the diocese of Ottawa and Art Babych, editor of the diocesan newspaper, Crosstalk, described what delegates could expect when they host the joint meeting three years