A meeting is taking place in Dublin this weekend of the Porvoo Communion of Churches, including Lutherans from the Nordic and Baltic countries and Anglicans in these islands. They will review the progress of the Porvoo Agreement, which all signed in 1996 and which established their communion.
Porvoo is a cathedral city in Finland, and its bishop, the Right Rev Erik Vikstrom, will preach at Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, on Sunday at the ordination to the priesthood of the Rev Lynda Peilow.
Meetings this weekend will take place at the Church of Ireland Theological College in Dublin.
The Porvoo Communion is an alliance of the Anglican Churches of Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales with the Lutheran Churches of Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden. The Lutheran churches of Denmark and Latvia attend meetings as observers.
They have agreed to regard baptised members of each church as members of all 10 signatory churches; to welcome each others' ordained bishops, priests and deacons to minister in each, and in accordance with the regulations of the visited church; to welcome visiting congregations into the life of the receiving church; and to consult one another on significant matters of faith and order, life and work.
This weekend's meeting is being organised by Canon Paul Colton, rector of Castleknock in Dublin. He represented the Church of Ireland when work on preparing the Porvoo Agreement began in 1989.
