The Porvoo Churches
Welcome to the Porvoo Pages
The Website of the Porvoo Communion
On these pages you will find official documents, information, pastoral resources and other material from the ongoing Porvoo process.
There are links to the websites of the Porvoo churches and translations of the Porvoo Common Statement in many languages.
Each Porvoo country has a contact-person, and it is through this person that material on these pages is made available.
The Porvoo Common Statement with the Porvoo Agreement
This is the name given to a report issued at the conclusion of theological conversations by official representatives of four Anglican Churches and eight Nordic and Baltic Churches in 1989-1992. The Porvoo Common Statement included the text of the Porvoo Declaration, which the participants commended for acceptance to their Churches.
They were the Churches of England and Ireland, the Church in Wales and the Episcopal Church of Scotland, together with the Churches of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and the Evangelical-Lutheran Churches of Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia and Lithuania. Acceptance by the signatory churches means that for the first time the Anglican Churches in Britain and Ireland have now moved into visible communion with other national Churches in Europe.
Why is it called Porvoo?
The report is named after the Porvoo Cathedral in Finland, where the Eucharist was celebrated on the final Sunday of the Conversations. (Porvoo is pronounced ‘Porvoh’, with the stress on the first syllable.)
What is the purpose of the Porvoo Common Statement?
To draw the Churches involved into a new and closer relationship for the sake of greater unity and more effective mission.
Which Churches have agreed and when
The Estonian Evangelical-Lutheran Church 19 April 1994
The Church of Sweden 24 August 1994
The Church of Norway 15 November 1994
The Scottish Episcopal Church 9 December 1994
The Church of Ireland 16 May 1995
The Church of England 9 July 1995
The Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Lithuania 29-30 July 1995
The Church in Wales September 1995
The Evangelical-Lutheran of Iceland 17-27 October 1995
The Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Finland 8 November 1995
Why these churches?
The churches covered by this agreement have a great deal in common: their history, liturgy, identity and their understanding of the Church’s mission today bear great resemblances. They are all episcopal churches and almost all of them are the national church and the continuing manifestation in its own land of the historic (western) Catholic Church.
Why only these churches?
The Porvoo Communion is not an ecumenical club but an ecumenical venture which in due time may grow in the number of churches involved. Comparative and fact-finding conversations between the Porvoo, Leuenberg (91 Lutheran, Reformed and United churches in Europe) and Meissen churches (Evangelical Church in Germany -EKD) have already taken place.
The bilateral relationships between the individual churches involved are of course also continuously nurtured and furthered.
Events
Resources
For more information please visit the website.