Porvoo Communion

Countries with churches of the Porvoo Communion. The Churches of the Anglican Communion have pink or violet names, while the Nordic Lutheran Churches have red names

The Porvoo Communion is a communion of 15 mainly northern European Anglican and Lutheran churches. It was established in 1992 by an agreement entitled the Porvoo Common Statement which establishes full communion between and among the churches.[1] The agreement was negotiated in the town of Järvenpää in Finland, but the Communion's name comes from the city of Porvoo where there was a joint celebration of Holy Communion after the formal signing in Järvenpää.

In 1938, the Archbishop of Canterbury invited the representatives of the Estonian Lutheran Church and Latvian Lutheran Church to Lambeth Palace in order to reach "altar and pulpit fellowship" between the Anglican and Baltic Lutheran churches. This process came to a formal conclusion with the establishment of the much wider Porvoo Communion in 1992. The churches involved are the Anglican churches of the British Isles and the Lutheran churches of the Northern European countries. Later negotiations brought the Anglican churches of the Iberian Peninsula into the agreement. These churches all share episcopal polity.

The Porvoo Communion has no central office or overseer. Each member church has a contact person, and these contact persons form a contact group which meets every year. Two bishops, one Lutheran and the other Anglican, are co-moderators of the contact group, and there are two co-secretaries also drawn from both traditions.[2] There are also conferences and meetings organized to discuss issues of concern to the entire Communion.[3]

Participants

Signatories of the Porvoo Communion:[4]

1994
1995
2001
2010

The Church of Denmark voted in December 2009 to join the Porvoo Communion as a full member and signed the Porvoo Declaration on October 3, 2010.[5]

2014

Observers:[6]

See also

References

  1. The Porvoo Common Statement
  2. Porvoo Communion. Accessed May 10, 2014.
  3. Interchange. Accessed May 10, 2014.
  4. The Porvoo Communion: Anglican Churches and The Porvoo Communion: Lutheran Churches. Accessed May 10, 2014.
  5. Official press release. Accessed October 3, 2010.
  6. The Porvoo Communion: Observer Churches. Accessed May 10, 2014.

Further reading

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