12 December 2001

The Anglican Co-chairman of the Formal Conversations, Bishop Barry Rogerson, has made the following statement upon the publication of 'An Anglican-Methodist Covenant':

"This report stands in obedience to God's gift of Unity and God's calling to all Christians to make that Unity visible. Both our churches agreed that the process would be undertaken by stages, which in the experience of the Church of England has worked well in our conversations with the Lutheran Churches in Scandinavia and the German and French Protestant Churches. We have laid the foundations which we hope will lead at some point further down the road to full communication with the interchangeability of ministers and subsequently to visible unity.

"Visible unity involves all churches and so the Conversations have taken place in an ecumenical setting with members of the Baptist Union, the Moravian Church, the Roman Catholic Church and the United Reformed Church. Each of our churches has covenanted to keep their own ecumenical partners informed, so that nothing which is said and done will unwittingly deny what has already been agreed, nor make things more difficult in the future.

"You will find at the end of the Report a section headed "An Anglican-Methodist Covenant" which provides a series of Affirmations in which, to put it simply, what we say about ourselves we say about our sister church as well. This includes, amongst others, affirmations that we both belong to the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ and that we affirm an authentic ministry of Word and Sacrament in each other's churches.

The bulk of the Report explores these matters and starts by discovering the enormous amount we have in common. It is honest enough to speak about those matters about which we do not agree and on which further work will need to be done. These include the nature and appropriateness of establishment, that all authorised ministries are open to both women and men and some of the practical issues surrounding the celebration of the eucharist. The Church of England has already begun to address the issue of women bishops with the setting up of the Rochester Working Party which will make its initial report to the General Synod in July 2002.

What will this Report achieve?

• It is set in the context of the Mission of God, so that Church Leaders can be affirmed in what is already happening in many new housing areas, that is one church building, one congregation and often one minister acting on behalf of us all.
• It will be an encouragement to Local Ecumenical Partnerships (LEPs) that both churches will affirm what they are already doing. Many LEPs were set up when the last Anglican-Methodist Scheme failed to find sufficient support in the Church of England some thirty years ago.
• If our two churches agree at their summer meetings in 2003 then the work involved in resolving the outstanding issues can begin and the next stage brought to fulfilment.

"As someone who has spent the whole of his ministry involved in ecumenical issues and Anglican-Methodist relations in particular, this is a significant step forward and continues a process which could well change the face of English Christianity - which would be in obedience to God's gift and calling."

The Right Reverend Barry Rogerson

[Note to editors: The Right Reverend Barry Rogerson has been Bishop of Bristol since 1985 and at present in one of the Presidents of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland.]