c. 1997 Religion News Service

PHILADELPHIA _ Facing a decisive moment in American ecumenical relations, the nation’s largest Lutheran denomination Monday (Aug. 18) agreed to open its pulpits and communion tables to three Reformed denominations, but left the Episcopal Church _ a partner it courted for 30 years _ standing brideless at the altar.

Delegates at the Churchwide Assembly of the 5.2 million-member Evangelical Church in America easily agreed to the full communion agreement _ known as A Formula of Agreement _ with the Presbyterian Church (USA), Reformed Church in America and United Church of Christ.

But the delegates _ by the slim margin of 6 votes shy of the two-thirds necessary for passage _ rejected a similar proposal for full communion, known as the Concordat of Agreement, with the 2.5 million-member Episcopal Church.

Almost immediately after the stunning setback, however, support was building to bring the failed Episcopal agreement back to the floor for another vote Tuesday.

Fear by some elements in the ELCA _ mostly upper Midwesterners _ that an Episcopal agreement would infect Lutheranism with strong, autocratic bishops, appeared to have doomed the Concordat with the Episcopalians.

The vote on the Concordat was 684 in favor with 351 against. It followed a vote of 839 to 193 to accept the Formula with the three churches in the Reformed tradition.

“I believe we have entered a new era,” said Presiding Bishop H. George Anderson, who had strongly backed the arrangement with the Episcopal Church.

During a later press conference, Anderson _ a popular church historian tapped for the leadership post two years ago _ said he will work to bring the issue back to the 1999 Churchwide Assembly in hopes he can rescue the plan by the time Episcopalians meet in 2000.

Anderson refused to blame Episcopalians for Monday’s failure, saying rather it was a result of a lack of understanding by Lutherans. “There’s still some discussion needed in our church,” he said.

Anderson said the idea of full-communion agreements with each denomination retaining their traditions and church structures appears to be the future of the modern ecumenical movement.

“If the Lutheran and Reformed churches can bridge historic differences between Luther and Calvin, other denominations would do well to take a close look at what we’re doing,”said Anderson.

In a statement issued after the vote, Episcopal Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning said, “An opportunity was created, and I regret that we have missed it.”

However, Browning added he will encourage his church to continue a 1982 Episcopal-Lutheran agreement allowing for restricted joint worship services until the churches can enter into full communion.

The Episcopal Church and the three Reformed churches approved the full-communion agreements overwhelmingly during meetings throughout the spring and summer. Each Reformed church and the Lutherans must vote on the agreement one more time for it to take effect. That means the earliest it could go into effect is 2000, when the Lutherans meet again.

The agreement with the Reformed churches will affect a total of 10.5 million members of the four denominations.

It declares that the four churches agree on the key theological issues of how people are saved, and on the nature of the sacraments, the ministry and the church.

It establishes the possibility of joint worship services and freedom for members to attend other churches as well as the mutual recognition of clergy with assignments across denominational lines.

The Formula of Agreement also calls for common commitment to evangelism, witness and service, and creates a means of joint decision-making on critical issues of faith and church life.

A joint commission will work out details, such as placement of pastors in vacant pulpits, joint congregations and chaplaincies.

The victory for the Reformed accord brought a bittersweet response from the Rev. John Thomas, ecumenical officer for the United Church of Christ.

“I’m in a position of gratitude and grief, joy and sorrow,” Thomas said about the ecumenical split decision.

A dispirited ELCA Bishop Paul J. Blom of the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod and a member of the Lutheran-Episcopal team that hammered out the theological agreements in that proposal said the decision has killed any follow-up proposals “for a good quarter of a century.”

Blom said a generation of theologians worked on the proposal and its scholars will soon retire or die off. “The energy is gone for the immediate future,”he said.

A requirement that Lutherans accept the notion of the apostolic succession of bishops apparently killed the Episcopal proposal, based on three and a half days of debates during the Churchwide Assembly. The notion that there is an unbroken chain of bishops stretching back to the earliest days of the church was abandoned by Lutherans at the time of the 16th-century Reformation and its break with Rome.

The Episcopal Church, part of the worldwide Anglican Communion, also pulled away from Rome during the Reformation, but retained the apostolic succession.

A distrust of church hierarchy is a strong element that continues in modern Lutheranism and in the ELCA, when it was born in a multi-denomination merger a decade ago.

MJP END BRIGGS