ELCA Council to Consider 'Unusual Circumstances' for Ordinations

MUNDELEIN, Ill. (ELCA) -- The Church Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) initiated a process to consider ways of dealing with "unusual circumstances" surrounding ordination ceremonies that would be in keeping with a new "full communion" agreement with The Episcopal Church, USA. The council met July 28-30 at the Center for Development in Ministry, University of St. Mary on the Lake.
The Church Council is the ELCA's board of directors and serves as the legislative authority of the church between its churchwide assemblies. Assemblies are held every other year; the next is in August 2001 in Indianapolis.
The council asked that its legal and constitutional review committee -- in consultation with the ELCA's presiding bishop and secretary -- submit to the council's November meeting possible ways "to allow a synodical bishop, in unusual circumstances and with appropriate consultation, to authorize another ELCA pastor to preside at an ordination."
The ELCA's 1999 Churchwide Assembly approved a proposal for full communion with The Episcopal Church. The Episcopal General Convention accepted the proposal July 8 in Denver.
Among other things, full communion makes it possible for the ELCA and the Episcopal Church to exchange clergy and commits them to work together on future mission and service projects.
According to the agreement, future ceremonies used to install new Lutheran bishops will involve three bishops in the "historic episcopate" -- a succession of bishops reaching back to the early days of the Christian Church -- and ELCA bishops will preside at the ordinations of new ELCA pastors. Receiving the historic episcopate is a requirement in the Episcopal Church for the exchange of clergy.
The 10,862 congregations of the ELCA are organized into 65 synods, each headed by a bishop. Each synod met in assembly earlier this year, and 22 passed resolutions asking the ELCA somehow to modify the agreement.
Some assemblies passed resolutions asking that it be implemented "in such a way that those persons who feel bound by conscience to remain outside the historic episcopate are able to remain within the ELCA without compromising their consciences." Others asked the church to implement "the full communion agreement in such a way as to provide for full participation in the ELCA by those who cannot accept the mandatory imposition of the historic episcopate."
On March 6, the ELCA Conference of Bishops -- 65 synod bishops, as well as the presiding bishop and secretary -- issued a pastoral letter about the agreement's implementation, which gave the Church Council the wording for its resolution.
"As we gradually live into a relationship of full communion, we invite the exploration of possible ways to allow a synodical bishop, in unusual circumstances and with appropriate consultation, to authorize another ELCA pastor to preside at an ordination. We ask the ELCA Church Council, in consultation with the presiding bishop of this church, to pursue this exploration as part of our continued broad consultation in this church and with The Episcopal Church," said the conference.
The last time the council met, in April, it recognized that once the Episcopal Church accepts the proposal "there will be opportunity to examine jointly ways to practice the commitments of full communion, exploring together a variety of matters, which include possible ways to allow a synodical bishop, in unusual circumstances and with appropriate consultation, to authorize another ELCA pastor to preside at an ordination."
"Now that the action has been taken by both the ELCA and the Episcopal Church, there is some time for implementation," said Dr. Addie J. Butler, ELCA vice president and council chair, Philadelphia. "We need to plan very carefully how we will implement this agreement," she said.
Butler said the council asked its committee if there might be circumstances when people other than those "originally envisioned" would be involved in an ordination. "It may be a constitutional bylaw change, it may in fact get involved in the rubrics of ordination," she said. "We are giving our legal and constitutional review committee the opportunity to take a very close look at that."
That committee will not make a final decision, Butler pointed out. The committee will "prepare material that will come first to the church council and definitely to churchwide assembly," she said.
If the council deems that churchwide assembly action is needed, voting members will need to be notified six months before the August assembly, said the Rev. Lowell G. Almen, ELCA secretary. The council will need to make that determination at its November meeting, he said, because its April meeting would be too late.

For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or NEWS@ELCA.ORG
http://listserv.elca.org/archives/elcanews.html