Episcopal Bishop Robert Duncan welcomed the release of Anglican Communion Primates’ Meeting Communique this evening and commended it to the clergy and people of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh.  “The breadth and ramifications of this statement are astounding,” he said.

The document released late in the afternoon on February 24, calls on the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada to “voluntarily withdraw their members from the Anglican Consultative Council for the period leading up to the next Lambeth Conference,” in 2008.

“Effectively,” said Bishop Duncan, “The Episcopal Church has been suspended from the Anglican Communion and asked to choose between repentance marked by a real returning to the Anglican mainstream or ‘walking apart’ from the rest of the Anglican Communion.”

Bishop Duncan asked the clergy and people of the diocese to continue praying for the Episcopal Church as a whole, as well as for the Diocese. “While this statement strongly affirms the stands we have taken as a diocese over the last year-and-a-half, there are many among us for whom its contents will be very difficult.  I pray that we may speak the truth to each other in charity and, in the end, join together again as one church proclaiming the one Gospel of Jesus Christ in full fellowship with our Anglican brothers and sisters all over the world,” he added.

The document also calls for a “panel of reference,” set up by the Archbishop of Canterbury, to “supervise the adequacy of pastoral provisions made by any churches,” for congregations and dioceses in both the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada in dispute with their provinces or bishops.

“I continue to appreciate your prayers as work goes on to fully understand the primates’ intent and the way forward,” said Bishop Duncan.

Bishop Duncan plans to give a much more complete report on the Primates’ communiqué during the All-Diocese Post-Primates’ Meeting scheduled to begin at 7 pm on February 28 at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Monroeville.