It's not often that Synod offers a glimpse of the future, but perhaps today was one of those days. Predictably, it wasn’t the Church of England, or even a member of the Church of England, that provided the preview – but the ecumenical and Anglican Communion guests – who addressed the gathered members this morning.
As these two archbishops described their churches and their priorities, a great gulf opened up and it was as if the leaders of the Church of England were presented with a choice as to which future they would pursue.
First to take the stage was the Most Revd Urmas Viilma, the Primate of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church (EELC). Deaconed at the age of 20, two years after Estonia gained independence from the USSR, Viilma served the church for twenty years before he was elected Archbishop in November 2013 and then consecrated a bishop (so he could fulfil the role) a few months later.
He explained some of the challenges Christians face in Estonia, where 71% of people say they have no religion, many want to be free, they prefer to “live in a free relationship with God, without the involvement of the church.”
“Our status as a People's Church is not based on the number of church members or baptisms but the number of people who need the message of and touch of the Gospel with the Lutheran Church being in the best position to serve them… if he want to affect change we need to go into the world (Luke 10), We have to get our feet muddy, our hands dirty, and be prepared for the resulting discomfort.”
Secularism is not the only challenge. Just as he took up the role of Archbishop, Russia annexed Crimea, and with Russians making up a quarter of all Estonians, the church lives under the threat of invasion.
The Archbishop described how the church has tasked local clergy and congregation to have “crisis plans”, which involve everything from how to source food, water and energy supplies and protect and evacuate people and assets, to how the church will continue to minister, when the male members, including clergy, are called up to military service. But the plans don’t end there. Viilma’s horizons go further than the outbreak of war, “The key question is if and how the church is prepared to serve the people, in anticipation, during and after a war. At the end of the war the church will have to serve the people both in victory and defeat, even if we do not speak about the latter.”
Archbishop Viilma was not looking for sympathy, he sees Estonia as a “prophecy” of post-Christian Europe and he wanted to offer hope, concluding by saying:
“Our destiny is determined by our future in Christ, which is reaching out into our present day. The eternal life offered by Christ is an eschatological gift to the world in an era of hopelessness. The content of our proclamation is eschatological hope, that we have already been granted eternal life and have been delivered through faith to the risen Christ. This eschatological hope helps us overcome fear and becomes the light in the darkness.”
After a standing ovation, the acting-Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada (ACoC), the Most Revd Anne Germond came to the dais. She came to the priesthood in her forties, having first been a primary school teacher and a lecturer. Germond was consecrated in 2017 and has served as bishop and archbishop in several dioceses.
Her presentation was warm and upbeat.
“As members of the global Anglican Communion we share a deep and abiding bond of affection and fellowship that unites us in our shared Ministry and Mission to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ to the ends of the Earth,” she began, and then, having asked Synod members to raise their hand if they had been to Canada, she declared “We are practically siblings!”
The struggles that the ACoC face were probably more familiar to those gathered.
“I am here with you in great humility,” Archbishop Germond shared, “representing a Church that over the years has had equally difficult and divisive, synods filled with contentious issues and division.” Safeguarding failures and an inability to get the necessary votes to change the canonical definition of marriage were top of her agenda. She explained how that had caused, “further pain to LGBTQ2S+ persons and communities,” but that they had, “arrived at a local option,” referring to the decision of the bishops to allow individual dioceses to decide if same-sex marriage is permitted in their diocese.
The similarities did not end there - in the role of Acting-Primate, the Most Revd Germond is a caretaker, brought in because she was the longest serving bishop on the retirement of the Most Revd Linda Nicholls. The ACoC will discern the identity of their new Primate when their General Synod, which only meets every three years, convenes in July.
Archbishop Anne also hinted at the restructuring that the ACoC faces, having seen Average Sunday Attendance fall by 60% in twenty years to a point where about 0.15% of Canadians can be found in an ACoC church on a Sunday, and spoke of one diocese with only two clergy and another where the bishop was the only paid member of staff’
The Archbishop shared the theme of their forthcoming Synod, “Isaiah 40:31, which speaks of strength hope and renewal, ‘they will soar on wings like eagles’. In the Anglican Church of Canada, we share a common vision of God's mission for the world, entrusted with a Christian witness in word and deed, bearing the name of Christ, we put our collective faith in God and maintain hope in an environment of suspicion and hostility.”
And finished by saying she prayed, “the same for you - when it seems as though we have come to the end of our strength, God the creator of all things will renew us and care for us and we will soar like eagles and our strength will be renewed. We are given a pattern to guide us in the healing of this broken world through the life death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ - as light breaks through the darkness we are invited to look beyond what we can see, living boldly as a people of resurrection hope. Believe me, God comes in unexpecting ways and places - in a manger and on a cross - and through both unmasks the possibility of something new.”
To those who had ears to hear, these visitors and the churches they represent, offer prophetic archetypes of the church of the future.
Not because one is big and successful and the other is small and failing, because both churches are tiny communities in an increasingly secular world.
It is their focus and faith which could not be more different. It is how they answer the question, “What is the ‘good news’ that the church offers the world?”
Archbishop Urmas Viilma gave a vision of sacrificial service of their neighbours, aware of their desperate need for the gospel, and in so doing proclaiming the reality of the hope of eternal life, promised by the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
Archbishop Anne Germond was preoccupied by the here and now; the battles won and lost; relationships based on common experience; a manger, cross and resurrection that are merely a pattern to follow in the hope of something new, that might fix this broken world.
Two churches – two futures.
Except that is not quite right. According to David Goodhew, a long-time researcher of Anglican Communion statistics and a visiting fellow of St John’s College, Durham University the Anglican Church of Canada does not have a future.
Last summer, in an article for the Living Church, Goodhew wrote:
“Canada is the Titanic of the Anglican Communion. Some years ago it hit the iceberg. Since then, it has listed violently in a progressive direction. Now it is sinking beneath the waves. The figures are deeply sad, but they do not lie. And Western Anglicans would do well to learn from Canada’s baleful example. Much of Western Anglicanism is heading in the same direction, unless it changes course.”
Image taken from General Synod Livestream
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