Day 4
Covenant Council Pledges Continued Fruitful Conversations with Methodist Church
The ongoing conversations and developments with the Methodist Church in Ireland were outlined in the report of the Covenant Council which was presented at Synod on Thursday evening (May 16).
Proposer Archdeacon Barry Forde said the report covered three areas: the council’s understandings of ministry and episcope in each of our traditions and the implications of this for those who move to serve in the other denomination; those partnerships that are continuing to grow under the covenant; and other ways of collaborating at local and national level.
“Whilst at times it seems that the pace of change under the covenant is slow, it is also true to say that even when our traditions have produced agreements and statements, the actual outworking of these invariably throws up new things to think about at every point and turn that need careful and prayerful deliberation,” he said.
He said that there was meaningful engagement at their residential which was very helpful and it was important to take that time to be together and understand each other. He said that the conversations would continue.
The Covenant Council congratulated The Revd Clodagh Yambasu on her institution as Rector of the Fermoy Union of Parishes in Cork. Clodagh had worked as a Circuit minister and Superintendent in the Methodist Church in Ireland since 2010. He said this was a visible realization of unity as envisaged by the Covenant in 2002.
He added that partnerships at local level were also visible realisations of unity and a witness to sharing a common life in mission. These partnerships took time but he said that while some of the challenges were operational, the real hurdles were ideological.
Archdeacon Forde welcomed the appointment of the Revd Janet Unsworth as an Ecumenical Canon of St Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast. He hoped that lessons learned from the pilot initiative on interchangeability of lay readers and local preachers being undertaken in Dublin and Glendalough and the Southern District would help to guide how this might work across the island.
He concluded by congratulating the Revd John Alderdice as he takes up the role of President and Episcopal Ministery of the Methodist Church in Ireland in June.
Seconding the report Bishop Michael Burrows said we should never underestimate the significance of what has been achieved between the Church of Ireland and the Methodist Church in Ireland. It has been gazed upon with envy in other parts of the world, particularly in the area of interchangeability of ministry, he stated.
“We need each other in order to be whole ourselves. History makes that an important truism in relation to the intimate relationships between Anglicans and Methodists,” he said.
The motion on the Church of Ireland membership for the coming year was passed as follows: The Rt Rev Michael Burrows, Bishop of Tuam, Limerick and Killaloe (Co–Chair), Ms Elva Byrne, Very Rev Nigel Dunne, Rev Canon Dr Maurice Elliott, Ven Barry Forde and Rev Claire Kakuru.