Anglican Communion Appoints New Director for Unity, Faith and Order



The Revd Canon Dr Alyson Barnett-Cowan has been appointed Director for Unity, Faith and Order at the Anglican Communion Office. (The position was formerly known as Director of Ecumenical Affairs. Alyson's predecessor was Canon Gregory Cameron who is now Bishop of St Asaph in the Church in Wales. I was Gregory's predecessor). Alyson is pictured on the right of the picture above, alongside Dame Mary Tanner. We were together in Rome for some recent meetings with Vatican officials.

Alyson is a priest of the Anglican Church of Canada, where she was Director of Faith, Worship and Ministry. She has wide experience of the Anglican Communion, having worked on the Lambeth Commission on Communion, the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Ecumenical Relations, the Anglican-Lutheran International Commission, as well as the Faith and Order Plenary Commission of the World Council of Churches. She is married to Bruce, who is also a priest, and they have three grown children.

Although this is an Anglican Communion and not a C of E appointment, we in the Diocese in Europe will follow Alyson's ecumenical work with interest, since in our context relations with Roman Catholics, Lutherans and Orthodox are part of our daily bread. One of Alyson's first tasks is staffing the first meeting of the Inter Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order - IASCUFO. (Anglican acronyms are becoming very strange!) The Archbishop of Canterbury is hosting a dinner tonight in Lambeth Palace to mark the inauguration of the new Commission.

We welcome Alyson to this side of the Atlantic and wish her every blessing in her new ministry. I hope that in her ecumenical work she may come to know a wide range of the clergy and people of our diocese in the years to come.

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