Porvoo Communion

The Porvoo Communion is the community formed through an agreement between twelve European churches, none of which are in communion with the Roman Catholic Church or the Orthodox Churches. The agreement, entitled [http://www.porvoochurches.org/statements/index.htm "The Porvoo Common Statement"] , establishes full communion between and among the churches. The agreement was negotiated in 1992 in the town of Järvenpää in Finland. The name comes from the town of Porvoo where there was a joint celebration of Holy Communion after the formal signing in Järvenpää.

The participating churches understand themselves as parts of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church confessed in the Nicene Creed. The links of their community are (1) the faith of the ancient undivided church, renewed by the Protestant Reformation of the 16th centuryFact|date=September 2008, (2) the celebration of Baptism and Eucharist according to the Bible and the ecumenical tradition, (3) the uninterrupted continuity of the historic episcopate (considered lacking in the Lutheran churches of Germany which therefore stay apartFact|date=September 2008).

The churches involved are the Church of Ireland, the Anglican churches in Great Britain, the Lutheran national churches of the Nordic countries and the Lutheran churches of the Baltic countries of Estonia and Lithuania. Later negotiations brought the Anglican Communion churches of the Iberian Peninsula into the agreement.

Signatories of the Porvoo Communion:
*The Church of England
*The Church of Ireland
*The Scottish Episcopal Church
*The Church in Wales
*The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Iceland
*The Church of Norway
*The Church of Sweden (formerly a state-church)
*The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland
*The Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church
*The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Lithuania
*The Lusitanian Catholic Apostolic Evangelical Church of Portugal
*The Spanish Reformed Episcopal Church

Other churches involved as observers:
*The Church of Denmark
*The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia

ee also

* Called to Common Mission
* Waterloo Declaration

External links

* [http://www.porvoochurches.org/ Official website of the Porvoo Communion]
* [http://www.anglican-lutheran-society.org/ Anglican-Lutheran Society]