Revisiting the Meissen Declaration After 30 Years Beihefte Zur Ökumenischen Rundschau Nr

Home , Meissen (district)

Revisiting the Meissen Declaration after 30 Years Beihefte zur Ökumenischen Rundschau Nr. 126 Mark Chapman | Friederike Nüssel | Matthias Grebe (Eds.)

Revisiting the Meissen Declaration after 30 Years

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Introduction ...... 7 Mark Chapman and Friederike Nüssel

What Constitutes a Church? ...... 21 Christof Theilemann

What Constitutes a Church? Revisiting Ecclesiology, Ordained Ministry, and Episcopé in light of the Meissen Declaration...... 28 Matthias Grebe

Samuel Gobat A Reformed Bishop on a Joint Lutheran-Anglican See in Jerusalem . . . 51 Martin Wallraff

The Synod of Dordrecht and the re-protestantization of the Church of England...... 62 Stephen Hampton

Protestant Churches in Today’s Society and the Importance of the Ministry Some Remarks and Analyses from a German Sociological Perspective ...... 78 Hilke Rebenstorf

5 The Church of England – whose Church?...... 93 Rowena Pailing

Ecumenical developments in the relation between the European Anglicans and CPCE since 1988 Some aspects of interest...... 108 Michael Weinrich

Ecumenical conversation in the light of the Anglican-Methodist Covenant and Richard Hooker’s creative and expansive vision of the Church of England ...... 119 Andrea Russell

German Protestantism and the EKD in the years to come: theological visions, challenges, and hopes ...... 132 Ralf Meister

A Way Ahead for Meissen?...... 145 Jonathan Gibbs

After Porvoo? Beyond Meissen? The Dialogue Process between the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria (ELKB) and The Episcopal Church (TEC) ...... 156 Bernd Oberdorfer

List of Authors...... 166

6 “Where are we up to?” Bishops and Churches: a summary of changes and challenges in 30 years and for the next!

Mark Chapman: Introduction and reflections

This book seeks to describe the current situation in the Meissen process while at the same time offering some suggestions for a way forward. The simple question to be addressed is ‘Where are we up to?’ It would be very easy to answer this question very tersely: it would not be unreasonable to say that at least theologically the Church of England and the EKD are in much the same place in relation to full visible unity as they were when the Meissen Declaration was signed in 1988. Of course, that is not to say that there have not been enormous strides forward in terms of diocesan and parochial links and a whole variety of networks, but we still do not have interchangeability of ministers, and EKD clergy cannot be licensed as clergy in the Church of England. The intention behind the Meissen Theological Conference which met in the congenial surroundings of the Missionsakademie in Hamburg in February 2019 was to see whether it might be possible to change the tone from the previous few conferences which had focused on common themes in history and mission, but which did not really tackle some of the more thorny issues that stand in the way of full visible unity, but to which both the churches committed themselves in the Declaration. Looking through the reports of the conferences in the past, they can probably be divided into two – up until the early 2000s there was a strong exploration of unity with a sense that the goal of the Meissen Declaration of full visible unity was something achievable. Although the papers given at the conferences were very different in style and content there was a sense that the role of the Conference was supplying an academic resource for the Meissen process. From 2005, however, it is possible to detect something of a change of direction – there was a significant amount of ex-

7 ploration around practice and theology in initiation and mission. This seems to have been about a mutual learning from one another about what was happening both on the ground and in ecclesiology: this sort of study was both informative and interesting but there was far less reflection on the goals of Christian unity. More recently, there has been a common sharing in the memory of the sixteenth-century reformation, which obviously means very different things in the German-speaking countries from in England and the wider United Kingdom. While this is again very interesting and important for understanding one another it is easy to detect a certain distancing from the areas that continue to divide the EKD and the Church of England.1 As co-chairs of the Conference, we wanted to go back to re- flecting on full visible unity. As co-organisers Friederike Nüssel and I felt it was important to return to the question not simply of what we hold in common and learning from one another through our different practices, but also to address the questions about the remaining divisions. That meant moving beyond the sort of receptive ecumenism which has been adopted in the latest ARCIC process where churches seek to learn from one another though self-critical reflection. It is important to note the differences between the dialogue of the Church of England and the EKD and the ARCIC process: our two churches already recognise one another as churches and yet we still do not share inter-communion. The Meissen dialogue consequently called for a different method from that used by churches that do not share in mutual recognition. The idea behind the Hamburg Conference was thus simple: full visible unity can be achieved only by returning to discussion of the divisions rather than simply living with and learning from the status quo, however attractive. So as we came to prepare for the conference our thoughts were that we might return to the key focus of the Meissen Dec- laration on the achievement of full visible unity. As we see it, the Meissen

1 Visible Unity and the Ministry of Oversight: The Second Theological Conference held under the Meissen Agreement between the Church of England and the Evan- gelical Church in Germany (West Wickham, 1996) (London: Church House Pub- lishing, 1997); Ingolf U. Dalferth and Paul Oppenheim (eds) Einheit bezeugen / Wit- nessing to Unity (Springe, 1999; Cheltenham, 2001) (Frankfurt am Main: Lembeck, 2004); Christopher Hill, Matthias Kaiser, Leslie Nathaniel and Christoph Schwöbel (eds), Bereits erreichte Gemeinschaft und weitere Schritte / Communion Already Shared and Further Steps (Frodsham 2005, Düsseldorf 2008) (Frankfurt am Main: Lembeck, 2010); Christoph Ernst, Christopher Hill, Leslie Nathaniel and Friederike Nüssel (eds), Ekklesiologie in missionarischer Perspektive / Ecclesiology in Mission Perspective (Salisbury 2011) (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlags an stalt, 2012).

8 Theological Conference is a resource for the Meissen Commission: while it retains a degree of independence and it is not necessarily toeing any official line (for which the Church of England co-chair is very thankful), we are also aware that it must not simply be a talking shop. That said, the Church of England delegates went through the Appointments Committee, which means they were considered trustworthy to do some thinking on behalf of our Church. With this in the background, we were delighted that the mood of the Conference was highly positive and constructive. There was a real desire to work together to try to see whether there was a way through the im- passe which has been so well expressed in earlier conferences and indeed much more broadly. The remaining divisions are really very small, but enormously significant, and they coalesce around the question of the historic episcopate. Twenty years ago I outlined these in my own contribution to the conference held at Springe in 1999. There I expressed two trajectories in Anglican thinking about the historic episcopate: one based on an understanding of truth identified with the visible church, and one which renders any visible church, including its orders, necessarily provisional. In 1999 I was a young lecturer at Cuddesdon but, although I did not realise it at the time, the Springe conference was to become extremely important for my own growing interest in Anglicanism. Because I was working at a Church of England theological college and had to teach about modern church history I was beginning to read widely in Anglican theology and history. The conference provided the opportunity to explore what was still unfamiliar territory to me. And furthermore it gave me the chance to share my early gleanings with the German participants. Because there had been a reorganisation and a subsequent changeover of staff at the Council for Christian Unity at Church House in Westminster, I was asked to attend at very short notice. This meant that the organisers could give very little steer beyond the vague title of the Conference – ‘The Unity We Seek’. Like most participants in such conferences – and the same was true of this year’s – I found himself looking backwards rather than forwards, but also felt completely unconstrained by any official policy. I gave a paper on the politics of episcopacy which focused on the early years after the separation of the Church of England from Rome where I suggested that bishops had been retained after the Reformation not chiefly out of any great desire for continuity with the pre-Reformation past, but because it was easier to exercise political power through a hierarchical leadership than through the available alternatives. In particular, the pres-

9 byterian principle that elevated the equality of ministers and which was promoted by many Puritans which gave the parish elders control over the clergy, threatened the power of the state through a primitive form of direct democracy, at least in the church. The contribution broke some new ground and it was received by all present as a learned and well-argued piece. However, even though it was historically accurate and paved the way for significant further work in the area, the response to the suggestions made in the paper at the time says a great deal about what was at stake and clearly illustrates the underlying issues between the Meissen churches. Much of this, I would suggest, was not particularly theological. The response to the paper from the different sides was interesting. Through the course of the Conference itself there was a very lively discussion, and questions were asked about the nature of apostolicity and continuity and where the authority of bishops resided. It certainly provoked all the participants into further thought about the ambiguities of theology and politics, and obviously it also raised questions about the apparently hal- lowed principle of apostolic succession and more particularly its role in Anglican Identity. The editor of the Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche, Professor Dorothea Wendebourg, who was one of the delegates, particularly appreciated the paper and arranged for its translation and publication in that journal soon afterwards. It was also published in English and I sud- denly became a theologian of Anglicanism. I have lived with the repercus- sions of this conference ever since as I have written and lectured widely in all aspects of Anglican theology and history across the world.2 Yet, in my youthful naivety at Springe, I had not yet begun to understand much about the social history of ideas and theology which has since become one of my main interests. What I did at Springe in 1999 was to challenge the historicity of some of the myths about Anglican identity around episcopacy; that was both welcomed and understood by the Ger- man delegation who saw that there was more than one way of reading the evidence – but it proved much more difficult to convince some in my own church. And that Conference really changed my whole approach to the study of the past: a great deal of my work since that time has been con- cerned with a detailed and dispassionate analysis of the stories that Angli-

2 ‘The Politics of Episcopacy’ in Anglican and Episcopal History 69:4 (2000), pp. 474–503. Also in Ingolf U. Dalferth and Paul Oppenheim (eds) Einheit bezeugen / Witnessing to Unity (Frankfurt am Main: Lembeck, 2004), pp. 150–69; ‘Bischofsamt und Politik’ in Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 97:4 (2000), pp. 434–62. Also in Einheit bezeugen / Witnessing to Unity, pp. 170–97.

10 cans tell themselves about their identity. This has led to a number of books and numerous articles on the history of Anglican theology and more generally on the history of the church and mission across the old British Em- pire and the Anglican Communion. This method has proved very helpful in analysing some of the contemporary divisions in the Anglican Com- munion over sexuality.3 Thanks to the 1999 Conference I have now become one of the more prolific writers in Anglican history and theology.4 What became clear soon after the 1999 conference, however, was that, however historically accurate it might have been, my paper was far less appreciated by some in the Church of England. I gradually came to understand that historical theology could not be done by doing theology alone. Let me illustrate this: in the Meissen Common Statement and Dec- laration there is a huge amount of agreement. The criteria for what has been called (following Yves Congar) ecclesiality, that is, for a church to be a church, were fully recognised by both churches in language that res- onates with the historic Reformation formularies of both churches, much of which is shared – Article 19 of the 39 Articles of Religion of the Church of England and Article 7 of Augsburg Confession – and yet the divisions over interchangeability remained. As so many have said, including my for- mer student Steffen Weishaupt,5 there was very little theological reason

3 ‘“Homosexual Practice” and the Anglican Communion from the 1990s: A Case Study in Theology and Identity’ in Mark D. Chapman and Dominic Janes (eds), New Approaches in History and Theology to Same-Sex Love and Desire (New York and Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 187–208. 4 Books include (among many others) The Fantasy of Reunion: Anglicans, Catholics and Ecumenism, 1833–1882 (Oxford University Press, 2014); Anglican Theology (T & T Clark, February 2012); Bishops, Saints and Politics: Anglican Studies (T & T Clark International, 2007); Anglicanism: A Very Short Introduction (No. 149) (Oxford University Press, June 2006); The Oxford Handbook of Anglican Studies (with Martyn Percy and Sathi Clarke) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). Most recently, see Costly Communion: Ecumenical Initiative and Sacramental Strife in the Anglican Communion (with Jeremy Bonner) (Leiden: Brill, 2019, An- glican-Episcopal Theology and History, Volume 4). 5 Steffen Weishaupt, ‘The development of the concept of episcopacy in the Church of England from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries’, unpublished Ox- ford DPhil dissertation, 2013. See also, ‘The Columba Declaration und episkopal- istische Ekklesiologie. Hoffnung für Meissen nach Porvoo im Hinblick auf das “His- torische Bischofsamt”?’, Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 114 (2019), 82–118. On the earlier history of discussions between the Church of England and non- episcopal churches, see Damian J. Palmer, ‘Negotiating the Historic Episcopate: Christian Unity Discussions between the Anglican and Non-Episcopal Commun- ions, 1888–1938’, unpublished PhD dissertation, Charles Sturt University, 2014.

11 for this which means that much in the Meissen Agreement itself could be considered inconsistent: whatever the talk of Esse, Plene Esse or Bene Esse with regard to the Episcopate, the need to remain divided over the question of ministry seems to imply Esse. This is most clearly expressed in §16 of the Common Statement, which explains the strange part of the Declaration (sect. vii) where EKD bishops are asked not to do anything that might make them seem to act like reconciliation had been achieved. This is in spite of the fact that the grace of their orders is recognised. This also explains the ban on concelebration, despite the recognition of the ful- ness of the sacramental life of the EKD (sect. vi). It is precisely here, I think, that the theological arguments begin to break down. Thinking through the issues behind the remaining disagree- ments in Meissen and in the wider ecumenical context reveals the importance of what might loosely be called non-theological justifications that often masquerade as theology (although I recognise it is not always easy to distinguish between these aspects). The remaining differences are not principally matters of theology, but of identity. What I think is most appar- ent from the beginnings of Anglicanism (as distinct from the Church of England) is a form of identity rooted in a clamour for particularity and dis- tinctiveness. This was the sort of thing that Stephen Sykes sought in his Integrity of Anglicanism6 and has been at the heart of the method adopted by such writers as Paul Avis.7 Loosely put, for many, Anglicanism has become a ‘thing’ with a clear essence that has certain identifying features that make it quite different from other churches. The history of mission and Empire means that Anglicanism has become a major form of confessional identity that marks it out from the Church of England. This is something that could be referred to as ‘Lambeth Angli- canism’ which culminates in the famous Lambeth Quadrilateral of 1888 and the Lambeth Appeal to all Christian People of 1920 (which is shortly to be commemorated).8 The basis for this model is that reunion does not require any adherence to reformation principles, nor indeed to the formularies and liturgy of the Church of England, which are not included in the four points, but crucially it does require the acceptance of the so-called

6 Stephen Sykes, The Integrity of Anglicanism (London: Mowbray, 1978). 7 See Paul Avis, The Vocation of Anglicanism (London: Bloomsbury, 2016). 8 See my essay, ‘William Reed Huntington, American Catholicity and the Chicago–Lambeth Quadrilateral’ in Paul Avis and Benjamin M. Guyer (eds), The Lambeth Conference: Theology, History, Polity and Purpose (London: Bloomsbury, 2017), 84–106.

12 ‘historic episcopate’. While both key texts were developed from very specific post-war contexts (the American Civil War and the First World War), there is nevertheless a significant recasting of Anglican identity that makes any appeal to the authorities and the key defining formularies of the Church of England highly problematic. Apostolic Succession, which to many is synonymous with the term ‘historic episcopate’ and which found its way into the Quadrilateral, has become a symbolic identity for many Anglicans, including many in the Church of England. As I tried to show in my book on Anglican Theology there were many ideologies at work in the formation of identity within the Church of Eng- land and the wider Anglican Communion from the Reformation onwards. Most obvious in relation to the development of ecclesiology is the impact of Anglo-Catholicism; yet this too cannot easily be reduced to a single identity. It comes in many different varieties, each of which has claimed an identity at the expense of others. For some Anglo-Catholics, including many who regarded themselves as High Church, like William Palmer of Magdalen College, Oxford, the Church of England was simply the branch of the catholic Church in England, and what guaranteed its identity was its succession from the apostles. It was tested by recourse to the past. As is well known, most of the original Tractarians shared something similar in their understanding of the Church of England, albeit with varying inter- pretations of the role of the Reformation and the legitimacy of the Roman Catholic Church in England. For most, however, the Reformation was little more than a purging of some of the worst excesses of medieval papalism. For other Anglo-Catholics, however, the Church of England was understood as both catholic and reformed and functioned as a kind of ‘bridge church’. Its ecclesial identity somehow stands between extremes, and presents it with a distinctive ecumenical vocation. In his book Anglicanism in Ecumenical Perspective of 1965,9 for instance, the well-informed Roman Catholic interpreter, William H. Van de Pol, described the ‘special and original character’ of the Ecclesia Anglicana as the ‘conscious striving of the bishops and theologians of the sixteenth century to preserve [its] equilib- rium amidst the severe ecclesiastical storms of that time’.10 Van de Pol tellingly discusses what he calls “The Anglican Dislike of Being Called ‘Protestant’”,11 suggesting that, even though the Anglican Church “is a

9 William H. Van de Pol, Anglicanism in Ecumenical Perspective (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1965). 10 Van de Pol, Anglicanism, p. 24. 11 Van de Pol, Anglicanism, p. 94–101.

13 conglomeration of the most diverse and contradictory dogmatic, and ecclesiological ideas”,12 there are nevertheless very few Anglicans who would see the sixteenth century in absolute terms. Indeed, for Anglicans, he claims, Protestantism conjures up images of the worst forms of sectarianism and puritanism.13 For other Anglo-Catholics, however, the Church of England needed to be brought back into the Roman fold after years of separation which re- quired allegiance to the Bishop of Rome. It was this last group which was embodied in the figure of the exotic Henry Joy Fynes Clinton and his Catholic League, who provided the bulk of the opposition to almost all ecumenical discussions with protestants, most especially the formation of the Church of South India.14 These different groups might all be Anglo- Catholics, but they often vehemently disagree with one another and have very different levels of attachment to the doctrine of apostolic succession. For each of the different varieties of Anglo-Catholicism, and even for earlier High Churchmen, there is a deep and often visceral attachment to certain key features of identity that would probably have surprised most of the writers during the reign of Elizabeth I, when everybody knew they were reformed protestants, even if they disagreed about how much further reformation there was to go, as Stephen Hampton shows so clearly in this volume. The via media, it must be said, meant something quite different in Elizabeth’s reign. Apostolic Succession has become what can be referred to as a ‘condensation symbol’, a term used by the political scientist Murray Edelman who sees it as drawing all manner of ideas and identities into a single identity. The symbol itself might be something quite irrational or unprovable but is in practice a kind of container. This means it fits in well with the kind of sectarian analysis that Jonathan Gibbs has spoken of in relation to the thought of Richard Niebuhr. Boundaries are drawn up around a symbol that is often expressive of a specific myth. Apostolic succession in all its forms, I would suggest, is established on a historical myth that was central to identity-creation at a particularly formative period of Anglican history. But it has moved in very different directions: it cannot be understood without a wider knowledge of English and global political history, especially in the early 1830s as well as in the high point of the British Empire (and America) in the 1870s and 80s and more recently in

12 Van de Pol, Anglicanism, p. 97. 13 Van de Pol, Anglicanism, p. 100. 14 See Michael Walsh, Look to the Rock: The Anglican Papalist Quest and the Catholic League (Norwich: Canterbury, 2019).

14 the kinds of identities that shaped the Anglican Churches in the 1920s and 1930s. The role of bishops and a particular understanding of the nature of episcopacy grew into foundational aspects of Anglican self-description in the nineteenth century and were then read back into that church from the outside, as can be easily illustrated from ecumenical writers – alongside Van De Pol is the far more well-known and influential George Tavard whose The Quest for Catholicity: A Study in Anglicanism15 remains one of the best guides to the development of Anglicanism from the sixteenth century. Interestingly, his hero is Bishop Charles Gore, who understands catholicity as something relative and limited which is to be worked to- wards, ‘less a fact than a hope’.16 Tavard concludes: ‘The artificial and at all times unsatisfactory branch-theory has made way for a theory of a Catholic-Church-in-becoming, to the development of which all who aspire to Catholicity may contribute.’17 Nevertheless the idea that Gore’s is the Anglican theology is as fanciful as suggesting it is the wild fantasies of the theology of the Catholic League. By the end of the nineteenth century the symbol of apostolic succession had thus become the principal part of a form of self-understanding that also included patristic authority, continuity with the past, and a down- playing of the Reformation inheritance of the sixteenth century, which explains how a church that adopted a basically Reformed understanding of liturgy and doctrine in the 1550s and ‘60s could mutate into a church of mitred bishops and catholic doctrine and practice. There are inevitable issues emerging from all this that might set the agenda for the future and which go beyond the Meissen process. Different perceptions of Anglicanism and Anglo-Catholicism reveal a clearly con- tested phenomenon that hovers between incoherence, perfection and rel- ativism and forms itself around myths rather than clear doctrines and texts. For instance, what can look like an attractive version of via media theology can in practice lead to the sense of effortless complacency that has charac- terised many Anglicans through history, not least in the colonial era: unlike the Italians or Irish on the Catholic side, and the Germans and Scots on the Protestant, the English did not tend to any excess but steered the mid- dle path between extremes. The problem, which is true for any form of

15 George H. Tavard, The Quest for Catholicity: A Study in Anglicanism (London: The Catholic Book Club, 1963). 16 Tavard, The Quest for Catholicity, p. 189. 17 Tavard, The Quest for Catholicity, p. 200.

15 via media, is that it requires the creation of extremes, between which the truth is to be found. Innocent sounding slogans can mask some very strong ideas. These introductory remarks are intended to help set the agenda for the future. If we are to make much headway, I would suggest, there will be a need to explore the visceral (or emotional) and the sociological reasons for attachment to specific ideas, rather than simply the study of the theological. Why Anglicans, or at least Church of England people, think like they do and how theological concepts and doctrines are used in debate and conflicts is something that requires more than simple theological and rational analysis. This method might teach us a great deal and might become the means by which we can begin to work out what might reassure an opponent when what is at stake is principally a question of visceral rather than rational identity. One eminent, learned and generally liberal- minded theologian, who will remain nameless, with whom I was talking earlier in the year was so passionately opposed to the proposals for union with the Methodist Church that he felt it would rob him of the church he loved (even though the Methodist Church had already been recognised as a true church for a number of years). This was no doubt tied up with catholic identity expressed in the visible church. I am aware that this is one of the trajectories that I had expressed in my Springe lecture, but I am also aware that no amount of historical argument is going to get somebody like that to change their mind, unless they can be absolutely secure in their belief that ecumenism is not going to rob them of their ecclesial identity. All this boils down to a very simple question: is there a way of satisfy- ing those for whom it matters that the condensation symbol of apostolic succession is not under threat by closer union with those who do not share the same understanding of the historic episcopate? At some point it might be worth asking whether the idea of the historic episcopate itself is amenable to more than one understanding: it certainly was to the framer of the Lambeth Quadrilateral himself.18 Can there ever be different forms of episcopacy that are ‘valid’ but which are limited to their respective geo- graphical spheres and which therefore pose absolutely no ‘threat’ to any identity? But far more fundamental is some sort of analysis of the irrational

18 See my essay, ‘American Catholicity and the National Church: The Legacy of William Reed Huntington’ in Sewanee Theological Review 56 (Easter 2013), 113–48.

16 and the non-theological in the strange amalgam of identities that shape ecclesiology and around which people will rally. In post-Brexit Britain and against an incipient nationalist revival in parts of Germany, all this seems to me to be particularly pressing. In other words, I would quite like something to happen over the next few years that will make us more fully and visibly one for the sake of a wider unity of the world.

Friederike Nüssel: Response and reflection

In sharing the vision for the future work of the Theological Conference that Mark Chapman outlined and substantiated from both the Meissen Common Statement and a historical reflection on Anglican identity, I am adding some remarks from my perspective as EKD-co-chair of the Meissen Theological Conference. My first participation in the Theological Confer- ence dates back to the Conference in Kaiserswerth in 2008 which was entitled ‘Ecumenical Understanding and the Authority and Uses of Scrip- ture in the Context of the Meissen Agreement’,19 for which I was asked to give a paper on the use of Scripture and its impact on the concept of ministry in a Protestant perspective. In preparatory conversations with the members of the German delegation, Christoph Schwöbel who was EKD- co-chair at the time explained the purpose of the conference as to reflect in what sense both traditions would regard Scripture as the fundamental source of theological reasoning and share the epistemological principle of Reformation theology. The idea was to explore historically and systemati- cally a common basis for theological reasoning and in this way reach beyond the differences regarding the remaining differences in the ministry of oversight and the role of historic apostolic succession. My first encounter with the work of the Meissen Theological Conference, however, came through the request by Theologische Literaturzeitung to review the volume, Witnessing to Unity. Ten years after the Meissen declaration.20 In reading all the papers for the review I became aware of how difficult the

19 See Christopher Hill, Matthias Kaiser, Leslie Nathaniel and Christoph Schwöbel (eds), Bereits erreichte Gemeinschaft und weitere Schritte / Communion Already Shared and Further Steps (Frodsham 2005, Düsseldorf 2008) (Frankfurt am Main: Lembeck, 2010). 20 Friederike Nüssel, Review of Einheit bezeugen. Zehn Jahre nach der Meissener Erklärung, ed. by Ingolf U. Dalferth and Paul Oppenheim. In: ThLZ 129 (2004), 1377–1379.

17 debates on these issues in the conferences at Springe and Cheltenham in 1999 and 200121 on unity, the ministry of oversight and historic apostolic succession had been. In summarizing the papers for this review, I attempted to elicit the general theological concern of the papers within each delegation. While they all, of course, differed in the way in which they approached the topic, it was remarkable for me to see how especially the first two papers of the volume from the Church of England’s members seemed to point in different directions. The first one was written by Paul Avis on ‘Episcopacy in relation to the Foundation and Form of the Church’ in which he interprets the at- tributes of the Church to require a special responsibility for the episcopacy which is ‘the most fully ecclesial ministry’.22 The second paper was the one written by Mark Chapman which he mentioned above. The discrep- ancy between the two narratives about Anglican identity was astonishing in my eyes. In my search for a reconciling link, one point seemed to be especially important in the concluding theses of Paul Avis. Here, he says with regard to Anglicanism that all ‘these historical structures of continuity are fallible. They are effective signs of apostolic continuity as long as they remain faithful to the Gospel’.23 Although it seemed that there would be no way of achieving full, visible unity if the EKD would not be able to adopt a solution similar to the Provoo-agreement, these two sentences point to a criteriological and methodological convergence. First of all, from a Protestant perspective one can only agree with the fundamental criteriological role of the Gospel, which is, not surprisingly, also the theological basis of the Porvoo-agreement. Second, to acknowledge that the historical structures of continuity are fallible and cannot be regarded as immediate divine orderings, is very important as it not only allows but invites detailed historical exploration of these structures. This also opens the door for a historicizing approach which would reveal the complex concerns and con- textual conditions in which ecclesial identities emerge and develop and, in this way, serves as a basis for critical-constructive reflection. In my per- ception of the papers for the conference in Springe, this was what Mark Chapman had done in his paper which became a nucleus of his further re-

21 Ingolf U. Dalferth and Paul Oppenheim (eds) Einheit bezeugen / Witnessing to Unity (Springe, 1999; Cheltenham, 2001) (Frankfurt am Main: Lembeck, 2004). 22 Ingolf U.Dalferth and Paul Oppenheim (eds) Einheit bezeugen / Witnessing to Unity (Springe, 1999; Cheltenham, 2001) (Frankfurt am Main: Lembeck, 2004), 132. 23 Ibd. 133.

18 search in the field of Anglican history, theology and identity in numerous subsequent publications. This admirable work will be honoured by the award of a Doctor honoris causa from the University of Bonn in 2020, and I would like to take the opportunity of this introduction to congratulate him and express the gratitude from the EKD-side to have him as a co-chair in the Meissen Theological Conference. Going back to the discussions at the conferences in Springe and Chel- tenham, one can say from some distance now that in the papers of both sides differing conceptions of the role of episcopacy in historic apostolic succession for full, visible unity were laid out with clarity and sophistica- tion. Although there was convergence on the general task of ministry in the service of the Gospel, the need for the ministry of oversight and its importance for the unity of the church, the remaining difference in the understanding and role of historic episcopacy could not be resolved at the time.24 This has to do with the history of both churches and their ecclesial identities, as Mark Chapman has already indicated. In the case of the EKD it is important to understand that it is a communion of churches (Lan- deskirchen) dating back to the territories of the Holy Roman Empire of German Nations. Since territorial churches in the time of the Reformation adopted different concepts of the Reformation, this involved different church orders and theologies of ministry. In terms of the ministry of oversight, Lutheran churches in Germany preserved an episcopal order, but not the historic episcopacy in apostolic succession.25 While in the early nineteenth century a number of territorial churches with Reformed and Lutheran congregations formed united churches, it was only after World War II that the German territorial churches (Landeskirchen) organized themselves in the Protestant Church in Germany (EKD). This history and the related canon law were explained by Hendrik Munsonius in the Theo- logical Conference on ‘Church Communion in the Service of Reconcilia- tion’.26 It frames the identity of the EKD in which historical differences in

24 See Ingolf U. Dalferth, Der Weg der Ökumene (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt 2004). 25 See Friederike Nüssel, Zum Verständnis des evangelischen Bischofsamtes in der Neuzeit, in: Dorothea Sattler / Gunther Wenz (eds), Das kirchliche Amt in apos- tolischer Nachfolge, Vol 2: Ursprünge und Wandlungen (Freiburg i. Br./ Göttingen: Herder and Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006), 145–189. 26 See Hendrik Munsonius, Regional Churches and Church Fellowship, in: Beiträge der 8. Theologischen Konferenz, https://archiv.ekd.de/download/2014_8theol_ konferenz_referenten.pdf. 119–125.

19 church orders and the conception of the ministry of oversight are tolerated on the basis of a shared understanding that ‘a ministry of pastoral oversight (episkope), exercised in personal, collegial and communal ways, is neces- sary to witness to and safeguard the unity and apostolicity of the Church’ (Meissen Agreement 15, IX). The conferences in 2011, 2014 and 2017 revolved around the open question in various ways, and deepened mutual theological understanding. I would like to mention especially the conference in Salisbury in 2011 on ecclesiology from a missional perspective, in which we discussed our approaches to the task of mission in secularized and pluralistic societies. Nevertheless, with regard of the task of the Theological Conference as an integral part of the Meissen process, I agree with Mark Chapman that the question of how to overcome the remaining difference in the understanding of full, visible unity and the ministry of oversight and to achieve exchangeability of ministers is a goal of the Meissen Agreement, and the text of the agreement itself already includes the theological potential to achieve this goal. It is also important to note that the Meissen process has changed the relationship between the Church of England and the EKD through regular cooperation in the Meissen-commission and numerous partnerships between of parishes and congregations. Thus, the fellowship of the two churches is flourishing and very lively. After 30 years of visible growth in communion, it would be more than natural to share full, visible unity not only in the proclamation of the Gospel and in the celebration of sacraments, but also in full recognition of ministry and the exchange of ministers. Thus, the goal of the conference documented in this volume was to re- read the Meissen declaration and explore the impact of our recognition as churches in light of historical discoveries, sociological changes, ecumenical and global developments, and ecclesiological and practical demands. It is along these issues that we designed the programme of the conference in order to place the reflection on episcopal ministry and exchangeability of ministers in context.