Anglican-Methodist Covenant Report Proposes Changes in Holy Communion

The first Interim Report of the Anglican-Methodist Covenant has been published by the Joint Implementation Commission (JIC) and will be presented at the upcoming Methodist Conference and the General Synod of the Church of England this summer.

The report entitled "In the Spirit of The Covenant", which aims to lay down a framework of discussion and debate in both churches regarding the Covenant, has addressed three main areas concerning Church life - the bread and wine of Holy Communion, presidency at the Eucharist, and the interchangeability of ordained ministries between the two churches.

Radical changes for the traditions of the Holy Communion have been proposed by the report. While Methodists use individual cups during their communion services, the report suggest them to follow the Church of England use of a single chalice.

On the other hand, the Church of England should consider giving up the use of individual communion wafers, and adopt the Methodist way of using a single loaf of ordinary bread that would be broken after the Thanksgiving Prayer.

For the wine of the Holy Communion, both churches are to agree that only "the fruit of the vine" should be used. The tradition of the Church of England that requires communion wine to be alcoholic will not be changed, but Methodists would use non-alcoholic grape juice.

The report further describes the disposal of surplus consecrated elements as a "sensitive ecumenical issue". It commends for consideration in both churches that the sacred elements are consumed discreetly either after communion, or immediately after the service, by the minister and/or by others from the congregation.

About the presidency of the Eucharist, the English Church has retained the Roman Catholic practice of having a bishop or priest presiding at the Reformation. The Canon Law B 12.1 states unequivocally, "No person shall consecrate and administer the holy sacrament of the Lord’s Supper unless he shall have been ordained priest by Episcopal ordination."

In recent years, some writers, especially those from the evangelical wing, have questioned the position of the Church of England. They argued that both word and sacrament are places where God encounters people, while lay people who are properly trained are allowed to preach the Word, they should also be authorised to preside at the Holy Communion.

The report gives examples of some major documents released after such discussion to give evidence that the Church of England absolutely rejects the idea of lay presidency. However, it is suggested that "it is always dangerous to generalise the Church of England" because the motion for the authorisation to lay and diaconal presidency has been repeatedly considered by the Diocese of Sydney, which has a growing influence among certain sections of the evangelical wing of the Church.

In addition, in the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone in South America where there are very few priests to provide pastoral ministry for a vast geographical area, licensing deacons and lay people to preside at the Eucharist is in fact a flexible way to resolve the crisis.

For the Methodists, the report suggests that "all the branches of divided Methodism used lay people to some extent to administer the Lord’s Supper". Lay presidency "has been part of Methodist practice since the days of the Wesleys" as most of the early Methodist preachers were not in holy orders.

According to the Church of England newspaper, the Church of England is expected to continue to disallow lay or diaconal presidency "for the foreseeable future". But it suggests that the needs of mission could still lead to the Church of England accepting it.

The third issue discussed in the JIC report is the interchangeability of ministries, which is defined as a situation in relations between churches whereby the ordained ministers of one church are eligible to be appointed to ministerial offices in the other without undergoing re-ordination.

Currently, the Church of England has only concerned shared, but not interchangeable ministry in Local Ecumenical Partnerships. It embraces the following: full reciprocity between ministers in officiating at services of the word; the offering of Eucharistic hospitality to non-Anglicans; and the possibility of Eucharistic sharing in the sense of ministers of one church taking a role in a Eucharist at which the ordained minister of a partner church presides.

While the Methodist Conference ordains people who come through a process of discernment, training and testing to exercise the appropriate form of ministry in and on behalf of the Church, the Church seeks to accept those ordained in other churches to transfer to the Methodist Church and to be appointed to ministerial office as they wish to commit themselves to enter the covenant relationship and be received into full connexion with the Conference. And this is the concept of interchangeable ministry.

"Interchangeability is a crucial issue in ecumenical relations. It represents an incremental step in making visible the unity of the Church in Christ," the report says.

Meanwhile, no conclusion can be set out from the interim report, but it acknowledged the complexity behind the discussion concerning interchangeability of ministries. Some roadblocks include the different understandings of deacons in the two churches, the debate over women bishop consecration in the Anglican Church as well as episcopacy in the Methodist Church which is not prevalent.

The JIC report expresses the hope to provide some substantial resources for the process of reflection and prayer about the issues that continue to divide Methodists and Anglicans. And in the light of the responses from Anglicans and Methodists in England, the report would help to chart the direction in which the churches need to move, in the spirit of the Covenant, to a further phase of visible unity, according to the JIC report.