Page 3 - AECA.org.uk ¦ Koinonia 63

Koinonia

THE JOURNAL OF THE ANGLICAN &
EASTERN CHURCHES ASSOCIATION

Editorial

I HAVE recently come into temporary possession of some historic
documents relating to the Eastern Church Association, a forerunner of
the AECA. These are important archives in the history of Anglican-
Orthodox relations and they make fascinating reading, and in future
editions I intend to include some of the material with a series of articles
‘from the archives’.

The oldest material is a selection of occasional papers from 1902-
1904. A paper by Bishop Wordsworth of Salisbury contains an appendix
of ‘O?cial intercourse with the Orthodox Eastern Church and the Pa-
triarchate of Constantinople’ Among the letters is one from Constan-
tine the Ecumenical Patriarch to Archbishop Frederick Temple. The
Archbishop had presided over the Lambeth Conference of 1897 during
which the signi?cant resolution was made to secure ‘a clearer under-
standing and of establishing closer relations between the Church of the
East and the Anglican Communion’. As a result Temple had written to
Constantine, and in a letter of 15th September 1899, received a warm
response that included the following words:

‘The end of all this, beloved brother in Christ, is that we
grow in love to one another, and that our hearts, and those
of the clergy and people under us, be more closely knit to-
gether; because it is from hearts ?lled with love that the
glorious-fruited trees of peace and concord, of communion
and unity, of Christian faith and hope are wont to spring.
May God multiply the years of your Grace and make them

1