What Made Porvoo Possible

An Introductory Article by the Revd Dr Johan Dalman, Sweden

In wanting to summarise the criticism to Porvoo, Silvia Guzzetti of the L'Avvenire, on December 3rd 1994 concludes: "The Anglicans who in the work of the two ecumenical Anglo-Catholic commissions ARCIC have committed themselves to consider the Christian priesthood, not as an extension of the common Christian priesthood, but as an other reign of gifts of the Holy Spirit, seem to betray this promise. They seem to end up considering the priest/pastor as a laymen like many others, abandoning the idea that the priesthood is a Sacrament, just as it is done in the Lutheran protestant tradition. There are many expressions of such an Anglican reorientation: the ordination of women to pastors, the lay presidency at the Eucharist just to mention two."

The article describes how faithful British Christians in mainly Anglo-Catholic circles feel estranged by the decision to sign Porvoo believing it to be a further step away from mainline theology and a move towards a more protestant identity...

The article by Mrs Guzzetti was published at a time when Porvoo was still rather fresh out from the printers. Since then successive scholars and ecumenical commentators have given the Declaration much higher ratings - also among circles apt to subscribe to L'Avenire. But the description of the debate as it were, might still be of some interest to us as it takes as its point of departure an understanding of the dynamics of Porvoo, which, at least to my mind, only remotely has something to do with the actual Declaration.

It begs the question that Porvoo came about through an ecclesiological reorientation.

I would, in this paper, however like to argue in quite the opposite way - it was only when the ecclesiology of the churches concerned was taken seriously that Porvoo evolved. If Porvoo is to be remembered for anything in the ecumenical history of our age - it is for the fact that it actualised and spelled out the profound ecclesiology of the Porvoo churches in that it developed out of a Responding ecclesiology - an inter-relational ecclesiology.

Let me try to explain...

Porvoo as a bedtime story
There are many ways to tell the story of how it came to happen that four Anglican churches and six Nordic and Baltic Lutheran churches came to fall in love with each other and declare their intent to intermarry. Some like to start in Sigtuna in august 1989 when the final round of discussions begun, whereas others like to focus on the synodical processes within the churches involved and how they were able to tackle major decisions such as this.

I, personally, would like to begin in two ways - with the intent, however, of finishing of at the same place as any other Porvoo-storyteller. I would like to tell the story of Porvoo as Faith and Order and Porvoo as Life and Work.

Porvoo as Faith and Order
The most natural and appropriate way to begin the Porvoo saga is of course to take as its point of departure the findings and theological insights of that group of young talented Oxford theologians who half way in to the 19th century created the theory that was to become perhaps the single most important contribution to 20th century ecumenical development.

John Henry Newman sought together with his friends for the common denominators of the original church. Their theory - the branch theory - visualised the universal church as an impressive tree with many branches - each branch symbolising a ecclesiological split from the one original stem, a new shoot on the one tree. Years later, when the Newman himself was but a doll in wax at Madame Tussaud's, his ecumenical understanding, was finally brought to fruition in the form of the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral of 1888.

This is of course nothing but yesterdays news to you but if one has the ambition to tell, not only the Porvoo saga, but also the Pullach (Anglican-Lutheran International Conversations, 1970-72), Helsinki, Niagara and Meissen sagas, one has to identify the great importance of the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral. And not only that - I would argue - one can not leave Chicago-Lambeth out when speaking about BEM.

The document by the Faith and Order commission is of course in many respects a direct reaction and response to the Second Vatican Council - undoubtedly. But the relationship between the Lima text and the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral is so intimate that one cannot speak about the one without mentioning the other.

The BEM process summarised the inter-Lutheran discussion on the four points of the Chicago Lambeth Quadrilateral;

The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as `containing all things necessary to salvation' and as being the `rule and ultimate standard of faith'.

The Apostles' Creed as the Baptismal Symbol; and the Nicene Creed, as the sufficient statement of the Christian Faith.

The two Sacraments ordained by Christ Himself - Baptism and the Supper of the Lord - administered with unfailing use of Christ's Words of Institution, and of the elements ordained by Him. And finally

The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the Unity of His Church

BEM took care of most of those discussions and with Confessing the One Faith the Chicago Lambeth-process of reflection and reception was in many ways concluded also among the non-Anglican churches of the Reformation era.

The question of the Holy Scripture as being the rule and ultimate standard of faith, lying very much at the centre of all the other issues.

It was BEM who helped many Lutherans relate in a new and liberating way to the concept of episcopacy. The question was sincerely Anglican, the reorientation needed to make it ajournamente - Roman-Catholic.

In Sweden, such a process was of course begun already at the beginning of this century. In 1908 an official representative of the Church of Sweden, bishop Tottie, was received at the Lambeth Conference. He expressed greetings to the gathered Anglican bishops and was thereafter made a member of the committee on the issues of `intercommunion' with the Church of Sweden. This lead to the establishing of another committee and to formal talks in Uppsala in 1909. The official report of the Anglicans was available two years later and was presented to the 1920 Lambeth Conference. It was declared that the Swedish episcopal succession was unbroken, and that the Church of Sweden held the `right view' on episcopacy and priesthood. A recommendation followed that allowed members of the Church of Sweden to receive Holy Communion and for priests of the Church of Sweden to preach in Anglican churches. It was also recommended that mutual invitations to participate in episcopal consecrations should be extended.

The Swedish reply came in 1922. The reply was marked, not only by openness, but also by a significant independent stance. Great joy and delight was expressed concerning the closer relations and deeper communion between the churches, as well as a grateful awareness of the particular tradition of the Church of Sweden in its unbroken continuity with the common tradition of Christendom as a whole. At the same time there was nothing in this reply that implied a rejection of other Lutherans, neither with regard to the emphasis on Scripture and on the unmerited grace of God, nor the question of apostolic succession in the ordained ministry of the church.

Porvoo
Porvoo came little more than 70 years after the response of the Swedish bishops in 1922. It was, for all its novelty, very much a repetition of the response to the questions posed to the Swedes by the Anglicans in Uppsala 1909 The same questions concerning the four signs of the original church; the Bible, the Creeds, the two Sacraments and the understanding of Episcopacy.

But if the questions to the Lutherans were the same, the answer was in some ways different in character - less independent.

When the Swedish bishops worded their formal reply at the beginning of the 1920:ties they followed very closely the logic of the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral but in doing so they emphasised, in true Lutheran tradition, the position of the Word. With reference to the negotiations in Uppsala in 1909, the Swedish bishops pointed out that the Church of Sweden did not attach decisive importance to the doctrine of the Church's ministry in general, or of the Apostolic Succession of the bishops in particular. On the other hand, the Church of Sweden held it to be essential to investigate whether or not, and to what extent, the two churches agreed in their concepts of the content of that message of salvation, founded on the divine revelation, which had been entrusted to them both. The Word as an effective word, was brought to the fore. The fact that such a remark was made has to influence our understanding of the very mutuality of the Anglo-Swedish agreement from 1922. It is at least in some ways a document with a Lutheran angle of approach - it introduces Lutheran, or if you wish, Swedish-Lutheran conceptualisations of the character of the church which to Anglican ears must have sounded different to from the rather Anglo-catholic tradition in which the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral was grounded. That aspect is not as visible in the Porvoo agreement.

The theological course of events during the second part of the 20th century has undoubtedly effected the ecumenical dialogue and made it more focused on what might be described as the C-L questions. As the Church of Sweden, some years ago, circulated the Joint Declaration of Justification among the parishes the reactions to the text by priest and laity was quite remarkable. Letters saying how wonderful it was to be granted the possibility to discuss Lutheran identity, came pouring in, and indicated that however complex and possibly even boring an ecumenical text might seem at first, this one at least managed to cause a reaction which none of us had initially envisaged. When we, a couple of years earlier, did the same thing with the Porvoo text, the reactions were rather less riveting. The parish councils confirmed that the theology of the Porvoo text was very much in line with what they themselves saw as the identity of the church. They were keen to establish closer links with the Anglican churches on the British Isles churches and saw few, if any, controversial elements in the suggested text.

The Chicago-Lambeth questions were well known to them - The matter of how the Doctrine of Justification by faith was to be reworded in a modern language, not - and the reactions were accordingly.

Another beginning
The story I so far have tried to tell, is the Porvoo saga according to Faith and Order - but there is another way to tell the same story - the Life and Work way.

Sweden in the 19th century was a poor country. The upheaval of the social structures in the countryside through the breaking up of the medieval hamlets, the industrialisation and the overpopulation, caused many farm-labourers and craftspeople to leave Sweden for the promised land of the West - to go to America. The Swedes were known be an industrious people who first built stables for their livestock, then a schoolhouse, then a chapel, and finally a house in which to live themselves. And it was when they were in-between the schoolhouse and the chapel, that they wrote back to Sweden asking for advice. Here we are, they wrote, a long way from home missing a Christian fellowship in which to feel included. As there isn't any branch of the Church of Sweden here, we wonder, to whom should we go - should we go to the Presbyterians, the Methodists or the Baptists, should we listen to the many independent preachers or set up our own prayer- and bible-study groups?

No, the reply came from Sweden - go to none of these - go to the Anglican Church, they are like us. But different.

And they went.

After a while the reactions came back - well, they said. We have been to the Anglicans - their services are different form ours, and they sound different, but their churchmanship is the same as our tradition - we feel welcomed and at home.

And this was a feeling that stuck. When the theologians several decades later sat down to discuss doctrinal details and ecclesiological particularities, they were able to say - we begin this discussion from the standpoint of two parties who already know eachother - we have already been together and recognised eachother on the mission-field. We met, got to know, respect and love each other through the experiences we share from our calling to the world. The life our peoples set the agenda, and we responded, not in exactly the same way, but from a common point of departure, a common understanding of what good churchmanship might be.

That understanding was at the back of the head of those theologians who negotiated in Uppsala in 1909, it was with the same backdrop that the last round of talks between the Anglican Churches on the British Isles and on Ireland, and the Lutheran Churches in Scandinavia and in the Baltic States were conducted, it is in this spirit that the Porvoo declaration was signed and now is being implemented. Being together in mission and ministry is being together both in mission and in ministry, both in identity and outreach. To be a community of churches according to a responding eccelsiology.

A responding ecclesiology
The outward features of the living church never has been and never will be static. The early church is only remotely like the church of today and to strive to organise it so as to resemble the way it once was to the highest possible degree, is just as fruitless as to try to reconstruct the Swedish society the way it was when it was being Christianised several hundred years ago. The calling of the church is to be a church in all times for all times. It is only the pilgrim church, the living, growing church, that is able to fulfil its eternal mission, Bishop Einar Billing wrote. The church has, thus, to look different at different times - however retaining its inner identity.

How is this achieved?

Visualise an ellipse with two focal points - one point being the analysis of society and the changes it is currently undergoing, the other being the confident understanding of the Christian gospel and the role of the church.

As theologians and as ecclesiologists our conceptualisations are always found somewhere within the boundaries of that ellipse. Either closer to the sociological or theological focal points and always in relation to both.

Therefore, whether we are involved in analysis of either the social or theological / ecclesiological / soteriological focal points we always seek to relate, adapt or borrow tools from the other focal point - and it is our ambition to identify means of connecting the two.

This toing and froing is not unique either to Lutheran or Anglican theology, but when we speak of it, we like to think of it as Folk-church theology. As an expression of what it is to be a church for all the people.

And it is not only an ecclesiology for the people, but an ecclesiology constructed through the active involvement of the people. Theologians are experts on theology, but know very little about recent changes in the school-system, or what kind of challenges that awaits the social welfare or medical system. Theologians know the inns and outs of spiritual formation, but has no knowledge whatsoever of how the social structure of the local community is expected to change within the next years or so. This is not theology, you might say, and I agree. It is however knowledge which is of great importance to a church that wishes to respond in a visible way to the society in which we all live. A ecclesiology where a wide range of different competencies are required, good theologians, as well as good sociologists, social planners, politicians, economists - well any skilled, knowledgeable engaged parishioner really.

It is not a process of one voice, many visions but of many voices, one vision. It is an ecclesiological process that has to be conducted on all levels - on the local/parochial, regional/diocesan and the national level.

If ecclesiology is done in such a way the church will never run the risk of becoming introspective or irrelevant the social focal point will be present at all stages. It will also not run the risk of becoming profane and secularised - the doctrinally based identity is never discarded, an obvious risk to a church wanting to be seen as relevant and up to date. The social aspects will always be balanced by the awareness of the theological and spiritual identity of the church. If one focal point becomes more focused than the other the credibility is jeopardised, but as long as we as churches seek to define and establish our ecclesiology firmly looking at the centre, we are on the safe side.

Porvoo - a new form of ecclesiology
The same but different... When the Swedish bishops in 1922 gave their response to the Chicago Lambeth questions, they did it in words which have become almost like a sacred text to us, they wrote:

"No

"(3) No particular organisation of the Church and of its ministry is instituted jure divino not even the order and discipline and state of things recorded in the New Testament, because the Holy Scriptures, the norma normans of the faith of the Church, are no law, but vindicate for the New Covenant the great principle of Christian freedom, unweariedly asserted by St. Paul against every form of legal religion, and applied with fresh strength and clearness by Luther, but instituted by our Saviour Himself, as for instance when, in taking farewell of His disciples, He did not regulate their future work by a priori rules and institutions, but directed them to he guidance of the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost.

"(4) The object of any organisation and of the whole ministry being included in the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the sacraments - according to the fifth article of the Augustana, God has instituted 'ministerium docendi evangelii et porrigendi sacramenta' - our Church cannot recognise any essential difference, de jure divino, of aim and authority between the two or three orders into which the ministry of grace may have been divided, jure humano, for the benefit and convenience of the Church.

"(5) The value of every organisation of the 'ministerium ecclesiasticum,' and of the Church in general, is only to be judged by its fitness and ability to become a pure vessel for the supernatural contents, and a perfect channel for the way of Divine Revelation unto mankind.

"(6) That doctrine in no wise makes our Church indifferent to the organisation and the forms of ministry which the cravings and experiences of the Christian community have produced under the guidance of the Spirit in the course of history. We do not only regard the peculiar forms and traditions of our Church with the reverence due to a venerable legacy from the past, but we realise in them a blessing from the God of history accorded to us."

This is the ecclesiological understanding that has brought the Faith and Order saga of Porvoo to its fruition whereas my church is concerned.

This is the ecclesiological understanding that has brought the Life and Work saga of Porvoo to its fruition whereas my church is concerned.

A ecclesiology for Porvoo is an ecclesiology that understands the church as community, rooted in history, searching for its identity within that ellipse where engagement in what might seem as secular activities in society, not is understood as being an expression of how the church involves itself with the activities of others, but how she is seen to play an active role, take active responsibility in the society to which she is called, and to do that in relation to the self-understanding we see as a blessing from the God of history accorded to us.

If somebody would have told Mrs Guzzetti that, she might have had to write another article - but that, that is quite another story.

Johan F Dalman