The Episcopal Church and the United Methodist Church (UMC) are moving toward full communion between the two bodies.
The Methodists are moving faster than the Episcopalians.
For the Methodists, the deal is done. The General Conference approved full communion April 30, with 95 percent of the conference in agreement.
It’s more complicated on the Episcopal side. A legislative committee on May 24 approved a revised resolution calling on the General Convention to “joyfully anticipate advancing toward full communion with the United Methodist Church,” as outlined in a proposed 2018 agreement crafted by an Episcopal‐United Methodist Dialogue Team.
The resolution does not call for a full-communion vote at General Convention, deferring that until the two denominations can negotiate “principles for the orderly exchange of ministers,” and “a plan for liturgical recognition and reconciliation of orders.”
“We want some specific action items to take place,” said Bishop R. William Franklin, an assisting bishop in the diocese of Long Island. “I would say this is not just a study document that’s been proposed, but an action plan to keep this moving.”
A full-communion agreement would allow clergy to preside over the sacraments at the other denomination, and even to be employed at each other’s churches. The Episcopal Church already has a full-communion agreement with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, along with a handful of other churches that are either much smaller or outside the United States.
The Rev. Margaret Rose, who leads ecumenical and interreligious relations, said a future General Convention would be asked to approve the same document approved by the UMC, “A Gift to the World: Co-Laborers for the Healing of Brokenness.”
That document specifies 14 points of doctrinal agreement between the two churches, addressing among other things the lordship of Jesus Christ, baptism, the Trinity, the creeds, and the principle that “the scriptures are to be understood today in the light of reasoned reflection on our contemporary experience.”
It states that both churches agree that baptism is “initiation into the life of Christ through the Church” and that the Eucharist “is a means of divine grace that sustains and deepens our faith.”
“We acknowledge and recognize that both churches have adapted the episcopacy to particular circumstances of mission, ministry, and witness,” the document states.
“We lament any ways, whether intentionally or unintentionally, explicitly or implicitly, that Episcopalians may have considered the ministerial orders of the United Methodist Church or its predecessor bodies to be lacking God’s grace,” it continues.
The document specifies a process for gradually reintroducing the historic episcopate in the United Methodist Church, patterned on the 2000 Called to Common Mission agreement between the Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which requires that three bishops in historic succession be involved in the consecration of future United Methodist bishops. At least one United Methodist bishop would also participate in the consecration of future Episcopal bishops.
These assurances were insufficient for several speakers who spoke against the resolution during hearings on the resolution on May 11. Several speakers pointed to significant disagreements between the churches over baptismal regeneration and the nature of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist.
Others expressed concern that the agreement would allow current United Methodist pastors to serve in Episcopal churches without any process for reordination or regularizing their orders.
“Our Methodist siblings may have a distinctly different understanding of how apostolic succession is defined and its implications for sacramental ministry,” said Brother Christian Ventura, who testified on May 11.
“I have many friends of marginalized identities who worry that affirming the agreement as it currently stands will push away many faithful queer people and people of color who cannot in good faith attend a service of Holy Eucharist celebrated by a minister outside of historic succession,” he added.
The full-communion document does not address same-sex marriage, but that topic has roiled both churches for years. More than 7,000 Methodist congregations have disaffiliated from the UMC — roughly a quarter of the total number of churches in the United States. Many of them have joined the Global Methodist Church, founded by conservatives in 2022.
The UMC delayed consideration of full communion as the disaffiliation process played out. At the April General Conference, the UMC also voted to split itself into four regions, so that regions outside the United States can set their own policies. The full-communion agreement pertains only to the UMC region in the United States.
One possible sticking point regarding the substitute resolution to be considered at General Convention is language that celebrates the Methodists’ “historic and sweeping changes to the Book of Discipline and social principles, made at that 2024 General Conference, regarding the ordination and marriage of homosexual persons.”
The Rev. David Simmons, an ecumenical officer from the Diocese of Milwaukee, said “most of us working on this aren’t really happy” with the reference to homosexual persons. “We’d like a more broad phrase. But that is the exact phrase that the UMC took out of all of their stuff,” he said, and the Methodists insisted the resolution should use the same language. Because the resolution does not adopt a particular agreement, changing the language likely would have no practical effect.
The Episcopal Church has a long history of seriously pursuing unions with other American Protestant churches that ultimately foundered on questions around sacramental validity and holy orders. A Concordat of Union with the Congregationalist Church was seriously pursued in the 1920s, and unity negotiations with the Presbyterian Church in the United States extended for over a decade in the late 1930s and 1940s before ultimately being abandoned.
Mark Michael contributed to this article.