Beyond Provincialism

From The Living Church-

Reflecting on reactions to the consecration of Gene Robinson, Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold commented: “Possibly naively, we thought it was a local event.” But for catholic Christians, the consecration of a bishop can never be of purely local concern. 

The bishop is, to quote The Virginia Report (1997), “one who represents the part to the whole and the whole to the part, the particularity of each diocese to the whole Communion and the Communion to each diocese” (6.10). And, according to the English report Episcopal Ministry (1990): “In [the bishop’s] sharing in the collegiality of bishops the local church is bound together with other local churches” (para. 351). To be able to exercise this relational ministry, a bishop must be acceptable to, and recognized by, the bishops of the wider Church.

This is why Canon 4 of the Council of Nicaea required that at least three bishops of the province (the immediate manifestation of the Church beyond the local diocese) join in ordaining a bishop, the others having consented in writing and the metropolitan having confirmed the election. Hence the 1930 Lambeth Conference’s stipulation that “the minimum number of Dioceses suitable to form a Province is four” (res. 52): as the relevant Conference committee pointed out, “on the vacancy of a See there will be in the Province the number of Bishops necessary for the consecration of a new Bishop.” Lambeth 1920 had already observed: “It is undesirable that Dioceses should remain indefinitely in isolation, or attached only to a distant Province” (res. 43).

More here-

http://www.livingchurch.org/beyond-provincialism