- CCM Verax Launch on Wednesday, 07 November 2001
- CCM Verax Publicizes ELCA Ecumenical Grand Deception
- ELCA Parishes Informed of Ecumenical Grand Deception
- CCM Verax "Epiphany Email Extravaganza"
- CCM Becomes More Controversial
- CCM Verax Appeals to Lutheran World Leaders for Support
- Shock as ELCA Proposes to Drop Reformation Day
- Disbelief as Lutherans Abandon Reformation Day
- Further Objections to ELCA Cancelling Reformation Day
- International Lutheran Community Responding to US Lutheran Ecumneical "Grand Deception"
- CCM Verax International Newsletter - Lent 2003 Edition (published)
- Proosed Public Debate at 10th Assembly of LWF
- LWF General Secretary Noko involved in ELCA Ecumenical Scandal
- ELCA Moral Leader in "Mitergate" Ecumenical Scandal
- ELCA Mitergate Scandal - Justification by Historic Episcopacy
- ELCA Moral Leader Runs from Mitergate Scandal Debate
- ELCA Mitergate Debate - Call to Lutherans Worldwide For Help
- Call for Suspension of ELCA Membership in Lutheran World Federation
- Sydney Diocese Anglicans vs. ELCA Mitergate Lutherans
- The ELCA and its new "Hypocrite Episcopate"
- ELCA Makes Historic Ecumenical U-Turn
- ELCA / LWF Perpetuate Fallacies about “Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification” (JDDJ)
- CCM Verax Communiqué to LWF Member Churches
CCM Verax Information Service
Date: 12th June 2003 - For Immediate Release
Title: SYDNEY DIOCESE ANGLICANS vs. ELCA MITERGATE LUTHERANS
Anglicans in the Diocese of Sydney, Australia are poised to become more Protestant than the "Mitergate" leadership in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).
The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH - 28 May 2003) reports that the Diocese of Sydney in the Anglican Church in Australia risks expulsion from the Anglican Communion if the Diocese proceeds with plans to allow lay persons to preside at holy communion. Lay presidency is prohibited by the English Parliament's 1662 Act of Uniformity, but an amendment to Australian state law in 1976 may allow the Diocese to disregard this Act.
SMH Religious Affairs Writer, Kelly Burke, reports, "That amendment ... effectively frees the Sydney Diocese from the Church of England's Act of Uniformity 1662, which states that 'no person whatsoever . . . shall presume to consecrate and administer the holy sacrament of the Lord's Supper before such time as he shall be ordained priest'."
While Anglicans in Sydney are preparing to depart from the restrictions of the 1662 Act of Uniformity, Lutherans in the ELCA have done the opposite. In 1999, the ELCA's Churchwide Assembly adopted Called to Common Mission (CCM), a full communion agreement between the ELCA and the Episcopal Church, USA.
The principles for unity in this agreement, as indicated in CCM paragraph 16, are anchored in the 1662 Act of Uniformity. This Act sought to eradicate all non-episcopalian forms of Christianity in England and Wales. Today, this Act serves as the foundation for unity for churches of the Anglican Communion. As a result of CCM, the ELCA is required to conform its structure and ordination practice to principles required by this Act. Consequently, lay presidency at holy communion in the ELCA is also under threat.
In order to get the 1999 Churchwide Assembly to pass CCM, ELCA officials told the denomination's voting members that the Lutheran statements of faith (known as Confessions) written in Germany in 1530-31 expressed a "deep desire" for the Anglican structures and restrictions on ministry enacted in England in 1662. Because of this ecumenical fraud, CCM is now known in the Lutheran world as the ELCA's "Mitergate" scandal.
CCM Verax Administrator, Dr. Mark Menacher, comments, "By advancing lay presidency at holy communion, the Anglicans in the Diocese of Sydney are putting the Word of God before restrictive human laws. In sharp contrast, the ELCA leadership has exchanged the liberating power of God's Word alone for human laws of religious intolerance from the seventeenth-century. The term "Protestant" was coined during the Lutheran Reformation. Clearly, Anglicans in the Diocese of Sydney are proving to be better Protestants than the leaders of the ELCA."
The Sydney Morning Herald article entitled "Subtle and sinful? Sydney
Anglicans risk split in Lord's Supper rumpus" is on the Internet
at:
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/05/27/1053801396764.html
For additional information, contact:
Pastor Mark D. Menacher,
PhD
CCM Verax
PO Box 26
Au Gres, MI 48703 0026 (USA)
+1 989 876 2764 (home)
+1 989 876 7415 (church)
mdmenacher@ccmverax.org
http://www.ccmverax.org
Editor:
Pastor
Mark D. Menacher, PhD, CCM Verax, 13823 Olive Grove Place , Poway, CA 92064 (USA)
+1 619-463-6633 (church) e-mail: mdmenacher@ccmverax.org
website: http://www.ccmverax.org
