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The Constitution of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia: A Model for Europe?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2014

Hanns Engelhardt
Hanns Engelhardt*
Affiliation:
Retired Judge, Federal (Supreme) Court, Germany
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Extract

It is a peculiarity of the European continent that there are four independent Anglican jurisdictions side by side: the Church of England with its Diocese in Europe, The Episcopal Church, based in the United States of America, with its Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe, and the Lusitanian and Spanish Reformed Episcopal Churches which are extra-provincial dioceses in the Anglican Communion. Alongside these, there are the Old Catholic Churches of the Union of Utrecht, with dioceses in the Netherlands, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. All of them are in full communion with each other, but they lack a comprehensive jurisdictional structure; consequently, there are cities where two or three bishops exercise jurisdiction canonically totally separately.

Keywords

EuropeAnglicancanonical structuretikanga
Type
Comment
Information
Ecclesiastical Law Journal , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , September 2014 , pp. 340 - 350
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical Law Society 2014 

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References

1 See Wigram, W, ‘The Mediterranean and the Near and Middle East’, in Wand, J (ed), The Anglican Communion: a survey (London, 1948), p 200Google Scholar.

2 Formerly known as the Convocation of American Churches in Europe.

3 See Evans, G and Wright, J R (eds), The Anglican Tradition (London, 1991), p 581Google Scholar; ILCAE website, <http://www.igreja-lusitana.org/index.php/en/news/235-lusitanian-church-new-bishop-s-consecration>, accessed 13 December 2013.

4 See Noyes, H, Church Reform in Spain and Portugal (London, 1897), pp 88, 93Google Scholar; World Council of Churches, ‘Spanish Reformed Episcopal Church’, <http://www.oikoumene.org/en/member-churches/spanish-reformed-episcopal-church>, accessed 13 December 2013.

5 Two more Old Catholic Churches exist in Poland and the Czech Republic.

6 Conference of Bishops of the Anglican Communion, Lambeth Conference 1968: resolutions and reports (London, 1968)Google Scholar, p 45, Resolution 63.

7 Resolutions CC2013-Res3 and CC2013-Res 4.

8 See M Davies, ‘“One church in Europe”: Old Catholics, Episcopalians commit to deeper communion’, <http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2013/10/23/one-church-in-europe/>, accessed 28 May 2014.

9 Constitution of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia, Part E, s 1.

10 Ibid, Part E, s 4(1)–(2).

11 Ibid, Part D, s 1(1).

12 Te Pīhopatanga o Aotearoa is practically regarded as a Province (internal).

13 See <http://www.anglican.org.nz/About>, accessed 29 October 2013.

14 Constitution, Part F, s 1(1).

15 Ibid, Part B, s 6(b)–(c).

16 Constitution, Parts D, E and F, s 3.

17 Ibid, Part C, s 3(3) and (4).

18 Ibid, Part C, ss 4 and 5.

19 Ibid, Part C, s 6.

20 Ibid, Part C, s 11.

21 Constitution, Part G, s 3; Part D, s 7; Part E, s 7; Part F, s 7.

22 See also ibid, Part C, s 10.

23 The Churches of Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Finland, Estonia and Lithuania signed up to the Porvoo agreement with the Churches of England and Ireland, the Church in Wales and the Scottish Episcopal Church in 1994. The Church of Denmark joined in 2010. The Church of Latvia, though part of the conversations that brought the agreement about, is not a signatory.

24 See Engelhardt, H, ‘Legal problems of Anglicanism in Germany’, (1999) 5 Ecc LJ 272–280 at 280Google Scholar.