News for Week Ending 1/10/2011

Primates’ meeting to begin January 25

The next meeting of the Anglican primates is scheduled to be held in Dublin, Ireland, January 25–31, 2011. The Sunday Business Post Online reported January 9, 2010, that the meeting will go on as scheduled, despite a threatened boycott by conservative primates to protest the attendance of Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schoiri. (See Pittsburgh Update story here.)

Nigerian bishop Josiah Idowu-Fearon published an open letter in the December 31, 2010, Church Times pleading with primates to attend the meeting. “Those who do not come are increasingly being portrayed as the aggressors, and are passing the media advantage to the Episcopal Church in the United States, and others,” he argued.

Covenant sent to CoE dioceses

Thinking Anglicans reported January 4, 2011, that the Anglican Covenant has been referred to Church of England diocesan synods. The synods were sent the act to adopt the Covenant, the paper on the Covenant prepared for the recent General Synod, the transcript of the General Synod debate on the measure, and additional information about the referral. Thinking Anglicans has links to all the documents here. The Church of England unveiled a new Web site (at http://churchofengland.org) January 7, so older links, including previously working links to these documents, may no longer work.