The 15th Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) meeting took place in Aotearoa, Auckland, New Zealand, from 27 October to 7 November 2012. Its president was Dr. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury. The International Old Catholic Bishops’ Conference was represented by Dr. Dirk Jan Schoon, the Bishop of Haarlem. At the meeting he took the opportunity to become more familiar with the worldwide Anglican Communion, which has been in full communion with the Old Catholic Churches of the Union of Utrecht since the Bonn Agreement was signed in 1931.
Every province of the Anglican Communion sends delegates to the ACC. The council is one of the four ‘instruments of communion’, the other three being the Archbishops of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference and the Primates’ Meetings. These instruments aim to sustain the global communion of the Anglican churches.
Bishop Schoon held a special status in the ACC. Invited as one of the ecumenical guests, he was nevertheless seen as ‘more’ than that due to the full communion between the Anglican and Old Catholic churches. He was, for example, invited to lead a service of Holy Communion during the council meeting.
The ACC approved the report of the Anglican–Old Catholic International Coordinating Council (AOCICC) and renewed its mandate, enabling the AOCICC to continue its work. Before the vote, Bishop Schoon presented and explained the report to the delegates. Feedback was very positive, and the hope was expressed that the cooperation between the Old Catholics, Anglicans and Lutherans in Europe can become a role model for the rest of the world.
Read here Bishop Schoon’s full report.
His address to the assembly is available here.