Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ to all gathered for this General Synod in London, Ontario. Archbishop Anne Germond has asked if I would share in her charge to Synod, as my final year as Primate covered the first year of this biennium.
General Synod 2023 gathered in Calgary under the theme of “Let There Be Greening”—a theme to reflect the urgent needs of our planet and the interior greening of the spiritual life of our church as the pandemic released its grip on our gathered life. We met in Assembly with our full communion partner, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, a sign of our continuing and deepening relationship with one another. There was joy at being able to gather in person again, though an undercurrent of uncertainty and anxiety about the future showed in some of our deliberations.
Though we hoped that COVID would disappear, it has simply transformed into a cyclical recurrence of virus mutations that, though less virulent in some ways, remain a threat to those most vulnerable. Care in our relationships with one another continues to require our attention, and vaccinations remain a part of our annual routines. Our liturgical practices in the eucharist show the ongoing uncertainties as some choose the common cup while others use small washable or recyclable cups and others simply acknowledge the chalice but do not receive from it. The sharing of the peace varies from a handshake to a nod to the peace sign. And masks remain a common occurrence. We are living with a diversity of practice through which we honour the needs of each person in our community.
Online worship continues, either through livestreaming of gathered worship, or online liturgies of compline or evening or morning prayer. They supplement our pre-pandemic patterns. We continue to reach people who are shut-in or simply seekers with a curiosity about faith. There is much to learn yet about how to engage online worshippers in deeper faith formation and in our community life.
At General Synod 2023 we passed resolutions that are shaping our life into the future. The five strategic transformational commitments lie at the heart of the work of General Synod committees and staff and are being addressed in many dioceses.
The first one, at the core of the commitments, is the call to inviting and deepening our life in Christ. After several years of careful work, General Synod produced Pray Without Ceasing—morning and evening prayer laid out in an easy-to-use format for daily devotional practice. I hear of many using it to shape their daily prayers, as I do. Many thanks to the Faith, Worship and Ministry Committee and the staff who worked hard to bring this to publication in 2024.
Dioceses across Canada are committed to discipleship formation in their own strategic plans. The House of Bishops worked collaboratively to arrange a visit from Archbishop Stephen Cottrell, Archbishop of York in the UK, to speak about discipleship during a cross-Canada trip in September 2024. This area remains a key need in our church as the message and hope of the Gospel need to be shared and lived.
The second transformational commitment was mutual interdependence with Sacred Circle. We walk alongside Archbishop Chris Harper and the Anglican Council of Indigenous Peoples as Sacred Circle establishes new ways of being an Indigenous expression of our Anglican heritage, while also healing the legacies of residential schools and unmarked burial sites. I know you will hear more from Archbishop Chris Harper and ACIP during this Synod.
The third commitment was nurturing right relationships. General Synod 2023 approved the establishment of a new full communion partnership with the Moravian Church that is slowly unfolding in our life. Where there are Moravian churches in our local communities, new relationships are being built and our shared ecumenical committee of Anglicans and Lutherans is being expanded to add Moravian representatives.
We continue to work through the Canadian Council of Churches for advocacy and information on issues of shared concern, joining our voice with others on issues for the common good.
I am also personally grateful for the gatherings of national church leaders for mutual support and prayer. Although our polities and doctrines may at times differ, we share the inheritance of Jesus Christ and a calling to love and care for one another.
At General Synod 2023, we also celebrated our full communion with Churches Beyond Borders—Anglicans and Lutherans in the USA and Canada—exchanging chalice & paten sets as a reminder of our common table.
I want to especially draw your attention to the work of many, many Canadian Anglicans who represent our church locally, nationally and internationally in ecumenical and interfaith dialogues and commissions, building good and right relationships. This is work that is rarely seen by the church as it is quietly carried out in conversations, discussions, conferences and consultations that result in statements and commitments that undergird and build our relationships.
For example, Bishop Susan Bell is the Co-Chair of the International Anglican Methodist Dialogue. The Rev. Canon Dr. Scott Sharman, our Ecumenical and Interfaith Officer, serves on the Interfaith Commission of the Anglican Communion, as well as serving as staff for each of our national dialogues— Anglican/Roman Catholic, Lutheran/Anglican/Moravian and Anglican/Mennonite. Clergy, theologians and lay leaders join in these dialogues in addition to local conversations, nurturing good relationships with one another. The Anglican Church of Canada is recognized in the Anglican Communion for our commitment to ecumenical and interfaith dialogue, and for our work toward Christian unity.
The fourth commitment is championing the dignity of every human person. It is woven through all of our working areas, ensuring our liturgies offer recognition of human diversity; advocating for the most vulnerable, especially refugees, migrant workers, missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, the LGBTQ2+ community in society and in church and all affected by systemic racism. A conference by Black Anglicans of Canada with support from General Synod was held in summer 2024 and is an important milestone in this work. A Dismantling Racism Committee will, I trust, be bringing further recommendations to you in this Synod.
And the fifth commitment is for social & ecological justice. With the provision of a parish resource for study and action approved at GS2023, work to inform and share this joint Anglican/Lutheran resource has begun. At General Synod 2023, we approved several other resolutions to address the urgency of climate change and take action on our own ways to reduce emissions to net zero. The purchase of staff travel includes carbon offsets when travel is necessary and reduced travel for committees and commissions has been implemented. These issues seem ever more urgent in light of the political changes around us. The voice of the Church must continue to call for compassion and justice.
At General Synod 2023, we updated our statement on Israel and Palestine to strengthen concern for the situation in the West Bank and Gaza and our need to firmly address antisemitism. Little did we know then what would happen on October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Jewish settlements on the Gaza border, killing hundreds and kidnapping over 200 people as hostages. That vicious attack has been thoroughly condemned as an act of terrorism, and the release of the hostages that remain alive remains a priority. I began to draft these reflections on the one-year anniversary of the attack, not knowing what the Middle East will look like by the time you hear these comments. As I record this video, we are in the early stages of what we hope will be a ceasefire and release of hostages that will be permanent.
Gaza has been reduced to rubble, with two million people displaced from their homes and livelihoods. The West Bank is under attack by radical settlers, while the state police or military do little to stop them. Hezbollah in Lebanon joined the fray with attacks and Israel responded with air raids into many parts of that country. Bishop Susan Johnson and I wrote to the Prime Minister of Canada on several occasions pleading for Canadian intervention wherever that may be possible or at least a voice of moral outrage at the unrelenting violence on all sides that will never, never produce the peace and security that Israelis and Palestinians need and desire.
I pray that by the time you hear this the war will have ended, but the Middle East has been changed forever. Our hearts are with the Diocese of Jerusalem and the Middle East, and especially with Archbishop Hosam Naoum, as they offer the light of the Gospel and support ministries of healing across the region. Pray for their witness and leadership. We had hoped Archbishop Naoum could join us at this Synod; however, his own Synod is meeting at this time.
In the months after General Synod 2023, I formed a Primate’s Commission to look at the structures of the national church needed for proclaiming the gospel in the 21st century. It is always good to stop and ask ourselves whether the ways in which we are working are actually working for us. I asked a group of theologians, clergy and laity to pick up concerns that had emerged during the focus group conversations that led to the transformational priorities and to help the church think about them in preparation for this General Synod. They posed a series of provocative ideas to stir up discussion in key focused conversation—which I know they did. I pray that the work they are presenting to you in this Synod will continue to help the church clarify what ways of being together as a national church for the sake of the Gospel will best serve our mission.
After the pandemic, there was a longing for stability, an end to the constant change, disruption and uncertainty we had been living with since early 2020. Alongside political disputes, the ongoing effects of climate change bring repeated summer forest fire seasons that dislocate people and destroy communities and a winter fire in California that has dislocated thousands of people; hurricanes that are stronger and last longer in the season than in the past; torrential rainstorms that flood homes, businesses and streets. Climate change is real and powerful. And in its wake, we live with uncertainty about the future.
We do not know what lies ahead, what more radical change may be coming, what human pain may be next. We do know, however, that we, as a Christian community, can face the uncertainties without fear. We face them with each other as companions and supports on the journey AND we face them with our hand firmly held by God, the creator and redeemer of all. We are not alone, we are not abandoned, and with courage and faith we can find among ourselves the resilience and strength needed for tomorrow and the next day.
As you deliberate in this Synod about the future, know that you have all you need to face it with courage and confidence—trusting in the love, grace and forgiveness of God, trusting in the strength and support of Anglican siblings across Canada—and you are able to soar on the wings of eagles, as the theme for this Synod declares.
I am deeply grateful for the time I served as your Primate and especially for the opportunities to visit you across this land—to see and know the resilience of Anglicans in each diocese and the faithfulness you each display in your context.
My prayers are with you as you discern the leadership needed in your next Primate to draw together the voices and stories of Anglicans across Canada; to nurture the mutual relationship with Sacred Circle; to represent us in the Anglican Communion and to offer wise teaching and counsel in the face of our challenges, in partnership with all of the staff of General Synod and with the bishops, clergy and people of the whole church. My prayers are with you in these days of discernment.
May I also add a voice of thanksgiving for the leadership of Archbishop Anne over this past year. She has taken on multiple tasks as the bishop of a diocese, the metropolitan of a province and acting Primate, and she has done that with grace and strength and courage. May you express your thanks to her in this synod as well.
May God, who has begun a good work in you, bring it to its fulness and completion, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the redeeming power of Jesus Christ.
Thanks be to God.