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Resolutions from 1878
Recommendation 1
Union Among the Churches of the Anglican Communion - Encyclical Letter 1.5
There are certain principles of church order which, your Committee
consider, ought to be distinctly recognised and set forth, as of great
importance for the maintenance of union among the Churches of our
Communion.
- First, that the duly certified action of every national or particular
Church, and of each ecclesiastical province (or diocese not included in a
province), in the exercise of its own discipline, should be respected by
all the other Churches, and by their individual members.
- Secondly, that when a diocese, or territorial sphere of administration,
has been constituted by the authority of any Church or province of this
Communion within its own limits, no bishop or other clergyman of any other
Church should exercise his functions within that diocese without the
consent of the bishop thereof.*
- Thirdly, that no bishop should authorise to officiate in his diocese a
clergyman coming from another Church or province, unless such clergyman
present letters testimonial, countersigned by the bishop of the diocese
from which he comes; such letters to be, as nearly as possible, in the form
adopted by such Church or province in the case of the transfer of a
clergyman from one diocese to another.
* This does not refer to questions respecting missionary bishops and foreign chaplaincies, which have been entrusted to other Committees.
[NOTE: The Lambeth Conference of 1878 did not adopt any formal Resolutions
as such. The mind of the Conference was recorded by incorporating the
Reports of its five Committees, received by the plenary Conference with
almost complete unanimity, into an Encyclical Letter which was duly
published. Recommendations embodied in the Committee Reports were
evidently accorded equivalent status to formal Resolutions, and they are
reproduced here as they appeared in the course of the Encyclical Letter,
under appropriate reference.]
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