Monday, July 28, 2008

ROC Observer: Lambeth Avoids Key Issues

The Moscow Patriarchate observer to the Lambeth conference held in UK these days (the once-a-decade congregation of Anglican bishops) laments that its participants avoid discussing key issues.

“The Conference is organized in the way to avoid discussing crucial issues such as attitude to sexual minorities, while difference in opinion on these particular questions has brought Anglican community to the verge of split,” head of the Russian Church representation to the European institutions Bishop Hilarion of Vienna and Austria told an Interfax-Religion correspondent.

He reminded that over 200 were boycotting the conference to protest against American church's installation of the openly gay Bishop Gene Robinson.

Mainly African bishops, but some prominent English hierarchs including the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester who had run for Archbishop of Canterbury, snubbed the conference. Robinson was not invited to participate in the Lambeth Conference, but traveled to England anyway. He gives lections and preaches, sharing his experience and urging Anglican community to approve of gay and lesbian bishops.

Leaflets and proclamations in Robinson’s support were spread among the Lambeth participants every day, Bishop Hilarion said.

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