Episcopal Press and News
Diocesan Ecumenical Officers Take Pulse of Ecumenical Movement
Episcopal News Service. May 27, 1993 [93105]
Ecumenical officers from 60 dioceses met in Milwaukee May 10-13 to take the pulse of ecumenism on the local level in the Episcopal Church and to share data from the grassroots that will help shape the church's future involvement in ecumenical relations.
"All the verbiage that Christianity is in the 'winter of ecumenism' was not evident in the meeting," said the Rev. William Townley, Jr. of Lambertville, New Jersey, president of the Episcopal Diocesan Ecumenical Officers (EDEO). "I detected the highest amount of energy for ecumenical work in my 15 years as an ecumenical officer," he said in an interview.
Townley reported that diocesan ecumenical officers are hopeful -- if not optimistic -- for the future of ecumenism, despite some obstacles. "It is well known that this is 'long-haul' work," he said. However, Townley said that focusing on ecumenical relationships on the local level, rather than the national or international dialogues, had given participants a boost of energy.
"Sometimes there is discouragement on the local level until people reflect about how much is going on in the ecumenical realm," said the Rev. Christopher Agnew, associate ecumenical officer at the Episcopal Church Center in New York. "People have a tendency to focus on the high-level ecumenical dialogues, but when they start listing what they're doing in their dioceses and parishes, they realize that they are very much involved in ecumenical work."
Agnew pointed out that Episcopal parishes and congregations of other denominations engage in a wide variety of cooperative efforts, including soup kitchens and other social ministry projects, as well as other mission activities and joint worship services. "Ecumenical cooperation has become so natural that it is often taken for granted," he said.
"There is a great deal of ecumenical activity on the local lever that is not even reported to the national level," Agnew added. The use of covenants on local, diocesan, and statewide basis has blossomed, he said. EDEO participants reviewed initial results of a survey of such covenants. Both Townley and Agnew agreed that information gleaned in the survey from across the church will inform an upcoming ecclesiology consultation in October. "That meeting will help to shape our church's next steps on the ecumenical journey for years to come," Agnew said.
Townley said that the October consultation may also help to answer a question that concerned several EDEO participants in Milwaukee: "How do we raise up a new generation of committed ecumenists?"