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- New splinter group refuses to leave
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- Lambeth ends on optimistic note
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- 'Wish you were here', Archbishop tells boycotting bishops
- South Sydney's bishop greets the Pope
- More than a million still waiting for aid
- Lambeth begins
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- Summit's only woman priest
- ADVERTISEMENTS: Professional Positions May 2008
- Important and devastating: Lessons from the summit
- Bishop named on Queen's Birthday Honours list
- OPINION: THINKING BIG .. What stops Anglicans thinking big?
- Which Anglican leader will meet the Pope?
- ADVERTISEMENTS: Professional Positions June 2008
- Anglicans get used to women bishops
- Richardson takes up Anglican post in Rome
Lambeth begins
By Allan Reeder, Market-Place
July 17, 2008
ARRIVALS: Among the first church leaders to arrive for the Lambeth Conference, New York's Bishop Catherine Roskam and Bishop Mano Rumalshah from Pakistan arrive at the campus Kent University July 16. PHOTO: ENS photo/Mary Frances Schjonberg
REGISTRATION: Bishops from Pakistan, USA and Panama talk with staff and helpers at Kent University in Canterbury. A preliminary 3-day retreat began 16 July ahead of the opening Lambeth service on Sunday. PHOTO: Jim Rosenthal/ACNS (c) Lambeth Conference.
WELCOME: Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams greets some of the dozens of volunteers helping at the Lambeth Conference Registration Office. PHOTO: Jim Rosenthal/ACNS (c) Lambeth Conference
By Allan Reeder, Market-Place
July 17, 2008
ARRIVALS: Among the first church leaders to arrive for the Lambeth Conference, New York's Bishop Catherine Roskam and Bishop Mano Rumalshah from Pakistan arrive at the campus Kent University July 16. PHOTO: ENS photo/Mary Frances Schjonberg
REGISTRATION: Bishops from Pakistan, USA and Panama talk with staff and helpers at Kent University in Canterbury. A preliminary 3-day retreat began 16 July ahead of the opening Lambeth service on Sunday. PHOTO: Jim Rosenthal/ACNS (c) Lambeth Conference.
WELCOME: Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams greets some of the dozens of volunteers helping at the Lambeth Conference Registration Office. PHOTO: Jim Rosenthal/ACNS (c) Lambeth Conference
From ACNS, Anglican Journal and sources
After years of international tension within the Anglican church, the once a decade gathering of the world's Anglican bishops is underway.
More than six hundred bishops arrived July 16 for a three-day preliminary retreat ahead of Sunday's opening service in Canterbury Cathedral.
But, numbers are down.
It's estimated more than two hundred bishops are boycotting the conference in a sign of the ongoing church rift over sexuality.
Observers believe the seeds of the current disagreement were sown in a vote at the last Lambeth Bishops' Conference in 1998, which condemned sexual activity by gays and lesbians as "incompatible with scripture".
There'll be far fewer voting sessions at the conference this time.
Despite the boycott which saw the staging of a rival GAFCON conference in Jerusalem last month, organisers claim three-quarters of the world's Anglican bishops have registered for the Lambeth Conference at Kent University in Canterbury, south-east of London.
While Bishop Gene Robinson, the openly gay bishop of the American diocese of New Hampshire, wasn't invited to the conference, it's understood he'll be attending a number of fringe events.
It's claimed 36 of the world's 38 Anglican provinces will be represented.
For the first time Australia's contingent will include two women bishops, Kaye Goldsworthy and Barbara Darling, who both became bishops earlier this year.
Australia's national church leader, Archbishop Phillip Aspinall, is to act as key media spokesperson for the conference.
Replacing most of the former debating and voting sessions, this year's agenda is designed to strengthen "the sense of a shared Anglican identity among the bishops", while also including practical sessions "to equip bishops for the role they increasingly have as leaders".
While decision-making won't be given a high priority, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has defended the agenda against claims it won't be addressing the 'hard' issues currently confronting the international church.
He said the agenda "will allow us both to confront differences honestly and to be focused anew on our primary tasks of service and mission."
With an emphasis on small-group work, the buzz-word of the conference is set to be 'indaba'.
Based on an African idea, Archbishop Williams said the 'indaba' groups are aimed at enabling the bishops to "get together to sort out the problems that affect them all, where everyone has a voice and where there is an attempt to find a common mind or a common story that everyone is able to tell when they go away from it".
During the event organisers expect to serve 70,000 meals, including 3.5 tonnes of bread rolls and 125,000 cups of tea and coffee.
Similarly to 1998, there's to be a parallel spouses' conference led by the wife of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Mrs Jane Williams. That event will again include around a dozen men.
"Bishops' spouses are as varied as the spouses of people in any other profession would be, but we do have some things in common," Mrs Jane Williams said, "like our faith, and the pains and pleasures of living with and supporting a bishop."
As well as major cathedral services, the key 'photo opportunities' of Lambeth this year will be the traditional 'team-photo' of all 600-plus bishops on 26 July and a 'Walk of Witness' from Parliament to Lambeth Palace in London on 24 July. The day in London will also include 'Tea at Buckingham Palace'.
The conference ends in 18 days on Sunday 3 August.