This book - Centro de Estudos Anglicanos

152THE EPISCOPALIANSeventually abandoned as changes in American society in the 1960s and 1970sencouraged an interest in pluralism and diversity rather than in unity. 79 By theend of the twentieth century, COCU evolved instead into Churches Uniting inChrist—a plan designed to allow each denomination to retain its own uniquepolity and liturgical traditions while simultaneously sharing in communion andworking in a common social mission with the other churches. Although Episcopalianshad often been uneasy about how COCU proposed to handle the role ofbishops, at the 2000 General Convention the Episcopal Church did pledge tocontinue its participation in the COCU dialogue. 80A more promising endeavor than COCU was the effort of Episcopalians toachieve full communion with the ELCA, the largest Lutheran body in the UnitedStates. In the colonial era, Anglicans and Swedish Lutherans in the mid-Atlanticregion had enjoyed very cordial relations, and their clergy had engaged in pulpitexchanges and attended one another’s meetings. Lutherans and Episcopalians hadalso discussed plans of union in the early nineteenth century, and the publicationof the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral encouraged ecumenical conversations betweenrepresentatives of the Episcopal Church and various Lutheran bodies inthe 1880s and 1890s. 81 Although in the twentieth century Lutherans focused onhealing internal theological and ethnic rifts—at one time there were over 60separate Lutheran church bodies—rather than on engaging in ecumenical conversations,the formation of the ELCA in 1988 at last freed church members toundertake serious discussions with Roman Catholics and Episcopalians.The initial series of talks between Lutherans and Episcopalians had begun in1969 and culminated in a eucharistic celebration at Washington National Cathedralin January 1983. During that celebration, representatives of the EpiscopalChurch and of the three Lutheran denominations that eventually formed the ELCA(the Lutheran Church in America, the American Lutheran Church, and the Associationof Evangelical Lutheran Churches) agreed both to recognize the authenticityof all four religious bodies as “a Church in which the Gospel is preachedand taught” and to permit their clergy to stand together at the altar in commoncelebrations of the Lord’s Supper. 82 Further discussions, which took place between1983 and 1991, resulted in two important documents: “Toward Full Communion”and the “Concordat of Agreement.” Those texts indicated that “full communion”would be premised on a mutual sharing of gifts, not on an organizational merger.The churches would be interdependent in doctrine and ministry while remainingautonomous in structure, and clergy would be able to officiate at services in oneanother’s churches without Episcopalians being required to subscribe to the AugsburgConfession or Lutherans being required to receive ordination by an Episcopalbishop. In addition, bishops from each denomination would agree toparticipate in the consecrations of bishops from the other church, so that all ELCAbishops would eventually stand in the same historic line of succession that Episcopaliansclaimed to have maintained. 83After the two reports were published, the denominations debated the strengthsand weaknesses of what had been proposed. In the summer of 1997, both churches