Anglican head to visit Vatican for unity celebration
Anglican head to visit Vatican for unity celebration
Posted: Friday, November 12, 2010, 9:38 (GMT)
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams and Pope Benedict XVI hold a Celebration of Evening Prayer at Westminster Abbey in central London on the second day of his State Visit. AP The visit follows the announcement from five Church of England bishops of their decision to join the Roman Catholic Church.
Dr Williams, the spiritual leader of Anglicans worldwide, will visit the Vatican on November 17 in honour of the 50th anniversary of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity.
The council aims, in part, to develop dialogue and collaboration with other churches and world communions.
Metropolitan John Zizioulas of Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Archbishop Kurt Koch, president of the council, will also attend.
Earlier this week, it was confirmed that five bishops would defect from the Anglican Communion to the Catholic Church. On Monday, Williams accepted "with regret" the decision of the Anglo-Catholic bishops who are leaving over the consecration of women bishops.
The bishops issued a statement explaining their reasons for leaving the Church of England: "[P]articularly we have been distressed by developments in Faith and Order in Anglicanism which we believe to be incompatible with the historic vocation of Anglicanism and the tradition of the Church for nearly two thousand years."
They said they would resign from their pastoral responsibilities on December 31 and join an ordinariate once one is created by the Roman Catholic Church.
