ENFYS: The Commission of the Covenanted Churches in Wales

Ecumenical Review, The, July, 2002 by Sion Aled Owen

ENFYS: THE COMMISSION OF THE COVENANTED CHURCHES IN WALES: [Anglican] Church in Wales, Committee of the Covenanted Baptist Churches, Methodist Church (in Wales), Presbyterian Church of Wales, United Reformed Church (National Synod of Wales)

The covenant in Wales was signed in 1975, and committed the then four negotiating partner churches (the Covenanted Baptists joining later) to working towards "visible unity" but without giving a close definition of what that term meant. In 1986, a scheme for union, "Ministry in a Uniting Church", proposing the establishment of a uniting church on an episcopal model of 18 dioceses covering Wales, was put before the partners, but failed to gain the necessary backing in the governing body of the Church in Wales.

Since 1997, ENFYS has been actively exploring a proposal which arose from a reexamination of the 1986 scheme. This is for an ecumenical bishop to serve in an area of east Cardiff, with a population of some 50,000 and a very mixed socio-economic make-up. The bishop would exercise oversight of 11 congregations, which have several years experience of ecumenical cooperation, as part of an ecumenical mission council. This appointment would be a "world first" in the sense that, although there already exist united and uniting churches involving episcopal governance (such as the Church of South India and the Church of North India), the ecumenical bishop would be in place before structural unity had been achieved. As such he [sic] would be an important symbol of the possibility of bridging between episcopal, presbyterian/connexional and congregational polities in Wales and beyond.

The use of the male pronoun in the last sentence highlights what has been one of the most contentious aspects of the proposal, namely that since the Church in Wales has not yet considered the issue of the admission of women to the episcopate, the price of including that church in the negotiations has had to be the acceptance that the first appointment will not be open to women. More will be said later of how this difficulty has been handled.

A bilingual (English and Welsh) booklet, Towards the Making of an Ecumenical Bishop in Wales, was produced in 1998 by Gethin Abraham-Williams, then general secretary of ENFYS (now general secretary of CYTUN, Churches Together in Wales), setting out the proposal, and the theological and practical rationale behind it, for consideration by the ENFYS partners. The proposal was accepted, in principle and for further discussion, by four of the negotiating partners. In the Presbyterian Church of Wales (PCW), however, the proposal, while being heavily endorsed by its largest association, in North Wales, was narrowly defeated in the association in the South and also rejected by the association in the East. This meant that, although a large majority of voting delegates across the associations as a whole had voted in favour of the proposal, the PCW was constitutionally unable to continue supporting it. (However this has, of course, no effect on the PCW's continued involvement in the covenant as such.)

The withdrawal of the Presbyterians, while regrettable, was not a terminal blow to the scheme. This is because, firstly, no Presbyterian congregations are involved in the area of oversight envisaged and, secondly, two of the other ENFYS partners were immediately willing to make up the consequent shortfall in financial support.

ENFYS was therefore able to continue with producing an ordinal for the consecration of the ecumenical bishop, which was agreed by the remaining partners during 2000, and also a definitive statement of the proposal. This text, known as "The Common Document", has been presented for consideration by the four partners who are still considering the scheme. The first draft of this was produced in August 2000 with the final version, incorporating amendments consequent upon ongoing discussions within the denominations, becoming available in January 2002.

We will know by the end of 2002 whether or not the proposed experiment will take place. The Covenanted Baptists will vote on the substantive proposal in their congregations during the year; the Methodist Church, having achieved 96 percent support in their Wales Gymanfa (a gathering of the three Welsh districts), will vote at their UK conference; the URC will also vote at their UK assembly in July; and the matter will be put to a final vote at the September meeting of the governing body of the Church in Wales. Although the URC, for constitutional reasons, will have to revisit the matter for a confirmatory vote in 2003, it is understood that this will be a formality, provided that there is a large majority in favour this year.

Ironically, it is within the one episcopally ordered church within ENFYS that the proposal is likely to encounter the most opposition. According to the Church in Wales constitution, the bill involved must be passed by a two-thirds majority in each of the houses of bishops, clergy and laity. While approval is guaranteed within the house of bishops and is likely within the house of laity, there is considerable opposition, mainly from an Anglo-Catholic standpoint, among the clergy. At the time of writing, it is impossible to predict the outcome of this crucial vote.