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Email to FriendEUROPE: Catholic, Orthodox warn Church of England on women bishops decision
"Such a decision signifies a break with the apostolic tradition maintained by all of the churches since the first millennium and is, therefore, a further obstacle to reconciliation between the Catholic Church and the Church of England," said the Vatican statement, released on July 8 by its Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.
The statement follows a vote the previous day by the Church of England's governing general synod to bring forward legislation to allow women bishops.
"This decision will have consequences on the future of dialogue, which had up until now borne fruit," the Vatican statement said.
Women were first ordained as priests in the Church of England in 1994, and for several years more than half those training for the priesthood have been women.
Two months after the first women were ordained as priests in the Church of England, Pope John Paul II released an "Apostolic letter", stating that "the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women."
Criticism of the Anglican decision has come also from the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church.
"This decision is of course painful in the inter-Christian dialogue, as it is further alienating the Anglican community from the apostolic tradition," the Rev. Igor Vyzhanov, secretary of the Moscow Patriarchate's Department for External Church Relations, was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency. "The decision was predictable because the tendency of total liberalization unfortunately dominates in many Christian churches, including the Anglican community."
However, German Bishop Maria Jepsen of Hamburg, who in 1992 became the world's first female Lutheran bishop, described the Church of England decision as "overdue," the German Protestant news agency epd reported. "It is also logical, because, after all, women have for many years been serving as priests," said Jepsen, who in 1994 attended the first Church of England ordinations of women as priests.
Bishop Margot Kässmann of Hanover also praised the decision, saying she was "looking forward" to her first female colleague from the Church of England. "My experience has been that as the number of women in episcopal ministry increases, so does the respect in which they are held."
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