Presiding Bishop says ‘gathering will be diminished by their absence’

By Matthew Davies (Episcopal Life On-line)

[Episcopal News Service] Five Anglican Primates, four from Africa and one
from south America, have publicized their intentions to boycott the 2008
Lambeth Conference in a letter responding to a group of English bishops who
had urged them to attend the once-a-decade gathering.

Archbishops Peter Akinola of Nigeria, Emmanuel Kolini of Rwanda, Benjamin
Nzimbi of Kenya, Henry Orombi of Uganda, and Gregory Venables of the
Southern Cone — who make up five of the 38 Anglican Primates — told the 21
English bishops that they would not attend Lambeth in protest to the
invitations extended by the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Episcopal
Church’s bishops. Akinola, Kolini and Orombi had all previously announced
that they intended to boycott the conference.

Neva Rae Fox, the Episcopal Church’s public affairs officer, noted that
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori is saddened by the primates’
decision not to attend Lambeth.

“The gathering will be diminished by their absence, and I imagine that they
themselves will miss a gift they might have otherwise received,” the
Presiding Bishop said. “None of us is called to ‘feel at home’ except in the
full and immediate presence of God. It is our searching, especially with
those we find most ‘other,’ that is likely to lead us into the fuller
experience of the body of Christ. Fear of the other is an invitation to seek
the face of God, not a threat to be avoided.”

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_94975_ENG_HTM.htm