Your All-Holiness:
I come to bring you greetings in
the Name of our Lord Jesus from the more than 63 million members
of the Lutheran World Federation and from the five million
members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the
second largest member church in the Lutheran World Federation.
I am here to witness to the
growing unity we share in Jesus Christ. As Lutherans around the
world have moved to a fuller understanding of communio, we do so
fully aware that we also are only one part of the one, holy,
catholic, and apostolic Church founded by our Risen Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ and sustained by God’s life-giving Spirit.
In July of last year, the members of the Lutheran World
Federation deepened this dual understanding of our role within
Christ’s Church at the Tenth Assembly convened in Winnipeg,
Manitoba, Canada. There we gathered under the theme, “For the
Healing of the World,” and we listened to the cries for justice,
peace, equality, and Church unity uttered by God’s children.
There we prayed that the divisions of the Church might be healed
and that global injustices might be halted. There we prayed for
the healing of God’s good and gracious creation, that God’s
intention for the world might be restored. There we joined in
solidarity with all those who daily experience brokenness rather
than wholeness, disease rather than health, hunger rather than
plenty.
We remembered especially families
and with you we bring to the throne of God’s almighty grace all
in every place who cry out for resurrection. With you we pledge
to respond to human need with the Good News of God’s love for
the world in His only-begotten Son.
Be assured that the members of
this delegation are honored and humbled that we are so
graciously received by you. Your very office expresses our hope
that our Church may be healed and united in witness for the sake
of the world. Your leadership, often in the face of adversity,
is profoundly appreciated. Your commitment to better
understanding among Christians is well known.
Your intense concern for all of
God’s Creation—combined with spiritual renewal, or as you would
say it, Orthopraxia—provides inspiring leadership for the care
of creation. You affirm with Lutherans that all of life,
including our relationship with each other, is dependent on the
Lord’s sanctifying grace. Your challenge that an ever growing
materialism and global economy may be occurring at the expense
of the environment is prophetic. Thank you for reminding us that
all of life must be understood as sacramental. Further, in the
world in which wars and rumors of war abound, I treasure your
thoughtful witness to the paths of peace and reconciliation. In
both church and society, harmony and concord are urgently needed
in the pursuit of justice and truth.
In my role as Presiding Bishop of
the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, I have come to
appreciate all the more that Lutherans and Orthodox have much
that bind us together. At the very beginning of the Lutheran
Reformation, there were hopes that the followers of Martin
Luther could forge strong ties with Constantinople. In the
United States of America, we have had a positive history of
ecumenical dialogue and of common witness on behalf of justice
and peace for all. We were able to reach agreement on the
filioque issue, with Lutherans approving the omission of the
phrase in mutual liturgies, and the Orthodox agreeing that
confessing the phrase is not heresy. We are in the midst of our
fourth U.S. Lutheran-Orthodox Dialogue. Our topic is “The Church
as the Mystery of Salvation.”
We are grateful for your gracious
invitation to host one of our meetings at the Phanar. We also
join with you in your work of caring for the earth as it
sustains those whom God has created in His own image. In this
regard, we share with you the statement of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America on the environment, “Caring for
Creation: Vision, Hope, and Justice,” which was adopted in 1993
by the Churchwide Assembly.
With abiding love and affection,
we pray that God will continue to bless you and your ministry to
the glory of God and the joy of the people of God. We also ask
that you remember us in your prayers, even as we promise to
remember you in our petitions of concern and thanksgiving.
Mark S. Hanson
Presiding Bishop
