Earlier this week, Christina Odenberg became the first woman bishop in the Church of Sweden when she was consecrated in Uppsala Cathedral. Bishop Odenberg, who is a distinguished scholar, becomes Bishop of Lund six months after her election.
The Church of Sweden has 7.6 million members, almost 89 per cent of the population. Although only 6 per cent of the members are weekly churchgoers, almost three-quarters of all infants are baptised in church, about two-thirds of marriages take place in church, and the church conducts almost 90 per cent of funerals.
Bishop Odenberg's consecration was attended by Lutheran and Anglican bishops from throughout the world, including Barbara Harris, the first woman to be consecrated a bishop in the Episcopal Church of the US, and the new Bishop of Cashel and Ossory, the Right Rev John Neill, who, as Bishop of Tuam, had steered through the measures for ordaining women in the Church of Ireland. However, there was no official representation from Sweden's small Roman Catholic Church as a sign of opposition to the ordination of women.
Bishop Odenberg's election comes comparatively late for the Church of Sweden, which agreed to the ordination of woman as far back as 1959. From the 1920s Anglican bishops from England and Lutheran bishops from Sweden had taken part in episcopal consecrations in each other's churches.
However, this ecumenical hospitality came to an abrupt end when it was suspended by Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher over the Swedish decision to ordain women, and was only resumed by Archbishop Donald Coggan after the General Synod of the Church of England agreed that there were "no fundamental objections" to the ordination of women.
Sunday's consecration marks an important stage in the debate in the churches on the ordination of women. But the presence of John Neill, Barbara Harris and other Anglican bishops points to another ecumenical break through. Over the past few years, the Anglican churches of Britain and Ireland and the Lutheran churches in the Nordic and Baltic countries have been ratifying the Porvoo Common Statement, forging a new communion embracing up to 23 million people in churches in 11 countries spread across the map of northern Europe: Denmark, England, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Scotland, Sweden and Wales.
In Ireland, tradition has tended to emphasise the contribution of Celtic spirituality to the development of Christianity. But it should not be forgotten that the church in cities, such as Dublin and Waterford, was essentially a Nordic foundation. The church historian, Canon Michael Burrows of Bandon, points out: "These city `states' also became the first Irish dioceses." Christ Church is a common name for cathedrals dedicated to the Holy Trinity in Nordic cities, a heritage shared by both Dublin and Waterford.
The Porvoo agreement commits the 11 Anglican and Lutheran churches, which recognise a common Celtic, Anglo-Saxon and Nordic heritage, to accepting each other's bishops, ministry and sacramental life, and to a common membership. Although the Church of Denmark has difficulties with the process of ratification and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia is still considering the agreement, Porvoo marks a major breakthrough for the ecumenical movement and provides a possible model for future schemes of church unity.
The agreement does not commit the churches to total integration in a way that would see them lose their particular identity and ethos. Nor does it paper over some of the real differences that continue to exist on the nature of episcopacy and the relevance of episcopal consecration.
A Porvoo website has been set up and this week it received an inquiry from an Irish person living in Finland. The Diocese of Connor and the Diocese of Linkoping in Sweden are to ratify their formal links by signing companionship agreement in St Anne's Cathedral, Belfast, on October 23rd. Next March, Bishop Neill and the Rev Paul Colton of Castleknock, Co Dublin, will take part in a meeting of Porvoo church leaders in Turku in Finland.
As the churches begin to take part officially in the consecration of each other's bishops and as clergy start moving naturally between one church and another, the last barriers to fall will be those concerning distance and language rather than doctrine and theology.
Meanwhile, a second Anglican-Lutheran agreement is beginning to have its impact on the churches of Europe. The Meissen Declaration holds out the possibility of closer links and co-operation in time between the Anglican churches of Europe and the Evangelical (Lutheran), Reformed (Calvinist) and United churches grouped together in the Evangelical Church of Germany, with up to 29 million members.
Earlier this summer the Lutherans in the US narrowly failed to ratify a similar agreement with the Episcopalians. But the Rev Paul Colton points out that, as the Anglican and Lutheran churches move closer to each other, it becomes "a challenge to disentangle and explore the overlapping agreements".
While politicians debate the architecture of the new Europe, agreements like Porvoo and Meissen hold out the possibility of more than 52 million Christians across Europe being brought together in a new communion of churches to form one of the largest Christian groupings after Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox. Mutual recognition and mutual care for each other, with overlapping membership, may not only be a model for ecumenism in the churches, it's tempting to suggest it might even offer a model for European structures with overlapping membership for states and citizens.