GOOD NEWS - THE MORAVIAN CHURCH AND THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN FULL COMMUNION

From Andrew Gerns at The Lead:

Last night the inaugural service celebrating full communion between the Episcopal Church and the Northern and Southern Provinces of the Moravian Church in North America was held at at Central Moravian Church in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori joined the Rev. Dr. Elizabeth Miller and the Rev. David Guthrie, the presidents of the two Moravian Provincial Elders' Conferences celebrated.

Good news, indeed, of God's people coming together.

The Reconciliation of Episcopal Ministries took place in this way: the Episcopal Bishops present faced the Unitas Fratum bishops. The Moravian bishops knelt and received laying on of hands and the "Right Hand of Fellowship" from the Episcopal Bishops. After that, the Episcopal Bishops knelt before their counterparts, and then received the laying on of hands and "Right Hand of Fellowship" from the Unitas Fratrum Bishops.

It's been a long, long time, but the reunion demonstrates that Christians should not give up hope of coming together even after a lengthy period of separation.

In an e-mail to the people of the Diocese of Bethlehem, Bishop Paul Marshall wrote:

In the 1780s, the Episcopal Church's leadership chose not to receive episcopal orders at the hands of Moravians, so our kneeling before each other tonight for the laying-on of hands and the right hand of fellowship was more than symbolic--it was a moment of healing. Ghosts can indeed become ancestors.

Thanks be to God.

UPDATE: The image on the left is the seal of the Moravian Church featuring the Agnus Dei, as pictured on stained glass window in the Rights Chapel of Trinity Moravian Church, Winston-Salem, NC.

The image on the right is of the arms of the Episcopal Church which includes both the cross of St. George and a St. Andrew's cross.