The Bishop of Edinburgh will on Friday travel to Amman, the capital of Jordan, to join nearly twenty other senior clerics for an international summit aimed at strengthening links between Anglicans and Lutherans.
The Right Revd Dr John Armes will represent the Scottish Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Edinburgh at the Summit of the Anglican-Lutheran International Commission on Unity and Mission, also known as ALICUM.
Taking place between Friday 28 March and Thursday 3 April, the Summit will bring together ten pairs of senior church leaders from the Anglican Communion and the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) whose jurisdictions are twinned with another in their respective partner’s province.
In Bishop John’s case, this will focus on the Diocese of Edinburgh’s links with the Diocese of Espoo in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. The Bishop of Espoo, Bishop Kaisamari Hintikka, and Bishop John will report on the link between the two dioceses and their hopes for the future.
Next week’s meeting follows numerous recent visits by the Diocese of Edinburgh to the Diocese of Espoo, including one in March 2024 undertaken by The Revd Canon Sarah Shaw, Synod Clerk and Rector of Christ Church, Falkirk, and The Revd Christine Downey, Rector of St Mary’s, Dalmahoy.
Many national churches in the Anglican Communion and the LWF are in full communion with each other. The Summit will explore the agreements that support this, and the implications for global communion and the path to Christian unity.
Through the Porvoo Communion, the Scottish Episcopal Church has been in full communion with the Lutheran churches of Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Estonia and Lithuania since 1994.
The Summit will also explore the theme of Baptism and members will visit Al-Maghtas, or Bethany Beyond the Jordan, which is one of two sites traditionally associated with the Baptism of Jesus Christ in the River Jordan and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Bishop John said: “I am excited to be part of this Summit meeting. Edinburgh’s link with Espoo began in Bishop Brian’s time and I am thrilled at the way it has flourished under successive bishops, involving both laity and clergy of the two dioceses. I am looking forward to hearing how Anglican-Lutheran links work in other parts of the world and to reflecting together on our shared call to follow Christ through the sacrament of Baptism. My hope is that this summit will provide further ways of developing our partnership and fostering the unity of Christ’s church.”
ALICUM was constituted in 2018 by the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion and the Lutheran World Federation Council. Its steering committee, of which The Revd Canon Professor Charlotte Methuen, Convener of the Scottish Episcopal Church’s Inter-Church Relations Committee, is part, met in Costa Rica in March 2023.
The Commission is “dispersed,” meaning that it consists of regional or national pairings of Anglican and Lutheran Bishops as well as other church leaders in high office. The Diocese of Edinburgh is partnered with several others across the world, including that of Cape Coast, Ghana, and Dunedin, Aotearoa/New Zealand.
