Exploration of this cooperation will be examined as one aspect of the experiences of Anglicans and Lutherans in North America since the 17th century, when historians and archivists of both faiths meet in Chicago, Illinois, June 20-23, 2004. Conference planners representing the Historical Society of the Episcopal Church, the National Episcopal Historians and Archivists, the Episcopal Women’s History Project, the Canadian Church Historical Society, the Lutheran Historical Conference, the Archives of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the American chapter of the Anglican-Lutheran Society encourage all interested persons to register and attend.

Those who arrive early for the conference have the option of taking a tour of the Diocese of Chicago Archives or of the churches of Oak Park on Sunday afternoon, June 20. Later that afternoon, Evensong at St. James’ Cathedral in downtown Chicago officially opens the conference. The Rev. Donald Armentrout will address the gathering on “What Has Canterbury to do with Wittenberg?” A reception will follow.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday sessions, including the conference banquet Tuesday evening, will take place at the O’Hare Marriott Hotel, the conference headquarters. Grace Lutheran Church in River Forest will be the site of the closing service and lunch on Wednesday. Round-trip bus transportation on Sunday to the cathedral and on Wednesday to Grace Church is included in the registration fee. The headquarters hotel provides complimentary transportation to and from nearby O’Hare Airport. For those who wish to investigate the Windy City, rail service to downtown Chicago is close by.

Varied program

The conference program will include individual speakers, panels, and workshops. Several of the sponsoring groups will hold their annual meetings during the conference as well as hold sessions highlighting their particular concerns:

• HSEC will hold its annual meeting at the Spring Hill O’Hare Suites on the Saturday before the conference officially begins. The Rev. J. Patrick Mauney, director of the Episcopal Church office of Anglican and Global Relations, will address the gathering.
• NEHA and the Lutheran archivists will present a panel on church archives and a workshop on starting an archives. In addition to the Sunday opportunity to visit Chicago’s diocesan archives, participants may choose to visit the ELCA Archives on Wednesday.
• EWHP’s contribution will include a panel on Chicago churchwomen and a workshop on recovering and preserving the history of women in the Church. It also plans a dinner with the Rev. J. Robert Wright, Historiographer of the Episcopal Church, as speaker.
• The Lutheran Historical Conference will sponsor a panel on using the web for research in church history.
• The Canadian Church Historical Society will offer a workshop on experiences and lessons learned from the recent litigation involving the Anglican Church in Canada.

The Very Rev. John Arnold, OBE, dean emeritus of Durham Cathedral, who has been one of the leading English participants in talks between Anglicans and Lutherans, will address the conference on “From Meissen to Porvoo and Beyond.” Formal Lutheran-Anglican conversations, cooperation, and agreements will be the subject of several other sessions. The Lutheran-Episcopal Coordinating Committee will present a discussion of the current relationship by the Very Rev. Donald G. Brown of Trinity Cathedral, Sacramento, California; the Rev. Duane Larson of Wartburg Theological Seminary; Dr. Thomas Ferguson, associate director of Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations of the Episcopal Church; and the Rev. Randall Lee of the ELCA Center. The implications of the Lutheran-Anglican dialogues will also be discussed.

The historical aspects of the conference topic will be the subject of several panels devoted to settlement in the New World, liturgy and spirituality, ecumenism in the first half of the 20th century, and the denominations” reactions to controversial questions. Participants will learn about “Swedes and Anglicans on the Delaware” and “Anglicans and Lutherans in the ‘American’ Pacific,” about “Lutherans in Harlem” and “Archbishop Temple’s American Ecumenism.”

One panel will treat “Before Being Called to Common Mission” while another will focus on Anglican and Lutheran history in Canada with papers on the “Foreign Protestants” of Nova Scotia, “New Insights into Anglicans in Atlantic Canada,” and “Mission History in the 21st Century.

Additional information can be obtained from Barbara Brandon Schnorrenberg (bbschnorrenberg@verizon.net) or Elisabeth Wittman, ELCA Archives, (ewittman@elca.org).