It is right we pray for other churches other than ourselves The Porvoo Churches are the only ones that the Church of England is in full communion with. We have not yet even managed to be in such communion with the Methodist Church They pray for us in the same cycle of prayer. Our Diocese has particular links with the Diocese of Linköping in Sweden and our parish with the parish of Lambertseter in Oslo in Norway. The Vicar was the Porvoo representative for the Diocese till last year, so he would encourage us to he involved because he feels such links are important. Why the name Porvoo? Because it is the name of the Diocese in Finland where the original agreement came into being. Does it make any difference? Read the article below which as taken from the magazine of the Community of Resurrection in Mirfield in Yorkshire. It is written by a former student Eerik Joks.
First inspiration – the Porvoo Agreement
My awareness about the Church of England was quite weak before the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church joined the Porvoo Agreement in 1994. I did know more about England, because I studied in the English-biased school where we learned the history and culture of Britain together with the English language. This was during the Soviet occupation and, obviously, there was no indication in our curriculum that there is also Church in the British Isles.
For a short period, before the Porvoo Agreement, I visited regularly the Holy Spirit Church – a Lutheran congregation in Tallinn where English services were held every Sunday at 3 pm. It was quite a good arrangement for someone who wanted to spend Sunday mornings in bed and still go to church. There was also a small Anglican Parish in the Holy Spirit Church and sometimes an Anglican priest came from Helsinki to conduct the service. On other Sundays, this duty was assigned to Rev. Gustav Piir who was raised in Canada and was able to conduct services in English.
Then the Porvoo Agreement came to be. I remember the solemn celebration in the Dome Church in Tallinn. A few years later, in 1996, I started my career as the Executive Secretary of the Estonian Council of Churches. On my first visit to Britain after the Porvoo Agreement, I went to a communion service in Abergavenny, in Wales. After the service, I went to the priest and said how glad I was to use the privilege of the Porvoo Agreement. “Porvoo what?” he replied. Probably it was not a very important thing for him.
In my understanding, at least until recently, the Porvoo Agreement was primarily about the Holy Communion. In the conservative religious landscape of Estonia the question of participation in the Holy Communion of another church was almost unthinkable. Therefore, it was of great significance when two different churches agreed that we could share the Holy Communion. Actually, I never thought that the connection through the Holy Communion happens only for a small minority of the members of the Porvoo churches. Probably for most, it is a symbolic sign of unity.
When I was living with the Community of the Resurrection in Mirfield, from time to time I heard the brethren praying for my home church – the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church. It was an eye-opening experience. The distance between Tallinn – the capital of Estonia – and Mirfield is over 1000 miles. The Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church is nowadays a small denomination with about 50,000 active members. The idea that there is a community 1000 miles away from my home that regularly prays for my church gives me hope. I think it gives hope to all Porvoo churches and beyond. I still think that the unity through the Holy Communion is the ultimate form of unity but it most certainly is not the only one. The prayers of the Brethren of the Resurrection helped me to understand the significance of the Porvoo Agreement from a point of view that was blocked by my one-track thinking of unity.
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