Declaration of the House of Bishops on Christian Unity
The statement on Christian unity adopted by the bishops of the Episcopal Church meeting at Chicago in 1886. It names four things as essential to the restoration of unity, the first form of the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral.
The bishops address the declaration to their fellow Christians of other communions in the United States. They say that all who have been duly baptized with water in the name of the Trinity are members of the Holy Catholic Church, that their church is ready to give up its own preferences in matters of human ordering, and that it does not seek to absorb other communions. They then name four things as inherent parts of the deposit of faith and order: the Scriptures, the Nicene Creed, the two sacraments, and the historic episcopate.
A note printed with the text in the Prayer Book says that the House of Bishops adopted this form but the House of Deputies did not enact it; it was referred to a new joint commission on Christian reunion.
Cited in
- July 1888, firm date