Page 11 - AECA.org.uk ¦ Koinonia 63

and did not command universal acceptance. However, there was one
‘core characteristic’ of the Church of England that was unchallenged by
any of the competing groups within it. This characteristic was Estab-
lishment – the church of the nation, whose supreme earthly authority
was an anointed Monarch.

The Tractarian party of the Church of England was therefore em-
ploying narratives about that church, which were both designed to cre-
ate new identities and simultaneously to be seen as rooted in historical
reality. In the case of the Church of England during this period, it was
most keen to use its theological publications, as well as hymnody and
liturgy, to demonstrate that it was a historic church, with a claim to le-
gitimacy equal to any Orthodox Church. In this way it ful?lled what the
philosopher Paul Ricoeur termed the search for mutual recognition.

Achieving closer relations with eastern churches had been placed
more into the day-to-day life of the Church of England by the existence
of two societies dedicated to this aim. The Eastern Churches Associa-
tion had been founded in 1864

“…to inform the British public as to the state and position
of the Eastern Christians, to make known the doctrines and
principles of the Anglican Church to the Christians in the
East, and to take advantage of all opportunities for inter-
communion with the Orthodox Church and friendly inter-
course with the other ancient Churches of the East, and to
assist as far as possible the Bishops of the Orthodox
Church in their e?orts to promote the spiritual welfare and
the education of their ?ocks.”2

The growth in interest in closer relations with eastern churches
was given further impetus in 1906 with the creation of the Anglican and
Eastern Orthodox Churches Union, “in order by practical e?ort to
promote mutual sympathy, understanding and intercourse, and to pro-

2 Anglican and Eastern Churches Association Archives, deposited in Lambeth Palace Library, Janu-
ary 2008. These papers do not yet have a detailed classi?cation.

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