March 15, 2005, Camp Allen, Texas

We have received the Windsor Report as a helpful contribution to our relationships with Anglican brothers and sisters across the world. We recognize its recommendations as coming from a broadly representative commission inclusive of bishops, clergy, and laity and as an attempt to speak as equals to equals. We experience it as being in the best tradition of autonomy within communion and as helpful in our efforts to live into communion. Likewise, we appreciate receiving the communiqué from the February meeting of the Primates and take seriously the perspectives and convictions stated therein.

It is our heartfelt desire to be responsive and attentive to the conversation we have already begun and to which we are being called and as a body offer the following points.

1. We reaffirm our commitment to the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral of 1888 and each of its individual points. We reaffirm our earnest desire to serve Christ in communion with the other provinces of the Anglican family. We reaffirm our continuing commitment to remain in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury and to participate fully in the Anglican Consultative Council, the Lambeth Conference, and the Primates' Meeting, and we earnestly reaffirm our desire to participate in the individual relationships, partnerships, and ministries that we share with other Anglicans, which provide substance to our experience of what it is to be in communion.

2. We express our own deep regret for the pain that others have experienced with respect to our actions at the General Convention of 2003 and we offer our sincerest apology and repentance for having breached our bonds of affection by any failure to consult adequately with our Anglican partners before taking those actions.

3. The Windsor Report has invited the Episcopal Church "to effect a moratorium on the election and consent to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate who is living in a same gender union until some new consensus in the Anglican Communion emerges" (Windsor Report, para. 134). Our polity, as affirmed both in the Windsor Report and the Primates' Communiqué, does not give us the authority to impose on the dioceses of our church moratoria based on matters of suitability beyond the well-articulated criteria of our canons and ordinal. Nevertheless, this extraordinary moment in our common life offers the opportunity for extraordinary action. In order to make the fullest possible response to the larger communion and to re-claim and strengthen our common bonds of affection, this House of Bishops takes the following provisional measure to contribute to a time for healing and for the educational process called for in the Windsor Report. Those of us having jurisdiction pledge to withhold consent to the consecration of any person elected to the episcopate after the date hereof until the General Convention of 2006, and we encourage the dioceses of our church to delay episcopal elections accordingly. We believe that Christian community requires us to share the burdens of such forbearance; thus it must pertain to all elections of bishops in the Episcopal Church. We recognize that this will cause hardship in some dioceses, and we commit to making ourselves available to those dioceses needing episcopal ministry.

4. In response to the invitation in the Windsor Report that we effect a moratorium on public rites of blessing for same sex unions, it is important that we clarify that the Episcopal Church has not authorized any such liturgies, nor has General Convention requested the development of such rites. The Primates, in their communiqué "assure homosexual people that they are children of God, loved and valued by him, and deserving of the best we can give of pastoral care and friendship" (Primates' Communiqué, para. 6). Some in our church hold such "pastoral care" to include the blessing of same sex relationships. Others hold that it does not. Nevertheless, we pledge not to authorize any public rites for the blessing of same sex unions, and we will not bless any such unions, at least until the General Convention of 2006.

5. We pledge ourselves not to cross diocesan boundaries to provide episcopal ministry in violation of our own canons and we will hold ourselves accordingly accountable. We will also hold bishops and clergy canonically resident in other provinces likewise accountable. We request that our Anglican partners "effect a moratorium on any further interventions" (Windsor Report, para. 155; see also 1988 Lambeth Conference Resolution 72 and 1998 Lambeth Conference Resolution III.2) and work with us to find more creative solutions, such as the initiation of companion diocese relationships, to help us meet the legitimate needs of our own people and still maintain our integrity.

6. As a body, we recognize the intentionality and seriousness of the Primates' invitation to the Episcopal Church to refrain voluntarily from having its delegates participate in the Anglican Consultative Council meetings until the Lambeth Conference of 2008. Although we lack the authority in our polity to make such a decision, we defer to the Anglican Consultative Council and the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church to deliberate seriously on that issue.

The bonds of affection are not ends in themselves but foundations for mission. Therefore, we re-commit ourselves to work together throughout the communion to eradicate HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and other diseases, to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, and to address the other efforts mentioned by the Primates' Communiqué (para. 20). We dedicate ourselves to full and open dialogue in every available venue through invitations for mutual visitation, intentional exploration of the theological perspectives and spiritual gifts that our diverse cultures offer, and collaborative partnerships for the purpose of shared mission in Christ.

— The House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church

March 16, 2005, Camp Allen, Texas

Beloved in Christ,

We are gathered at Camp Allen in Texas for our annual spring meeting, this year on the eve of Holy Week. The work we have accomplished is in service to that act through which God reconciled the whole world to himself through Christ.

"We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him" (Romans 6:9). As we prepare to celebrate Christ's victory over sin and death, we rejoice to place our whole trust in the freedom Christ has won for us and to submit ourselves to the service of his mission.

During these days we prayed the common prayer of our church, and our daily celebration of the Eucharist brought us closer together in the presence of the paschal mystery. Tears were shed to see lives taken and displaced by the tsunami, as we heard from one of our community who traveled to that region on behalf of Episcopal Relief and Development and of us all. In hearing of the threats to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, we were challenged to be good stewards of the creation. In considering Christian formation, we pondered how the Gospel is heard in diverse cultures: we were encouraged to listen to all voices, and to respect the dignity of every human being. Our hope and intention is to use the time ahead to initiate ways to speak with and learn from our brothers and sisters across the Communion about our common commitment to Christ and the different ways we seek to articulate, not only with our lips but in our lives, the gospel we share.

At our meeting in Salt Lake City in January 2005 we said that we would "commit ourselves to a more thorough consideration of the range of concrete actions identified in the [Windsor] Report at our House of Bishops meeting in March 2005." We also said we believe it is extremely important to take the time to allow the Holy Spirit to show us the way to deepen our communion together.

We believe that the Covenant Statement we have made has been achieved under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Our Covenant expresses remarkable convergences among us during these days and emerged from our mutual desire to speak as one House embracing widely divergent points of view. We sensed a profound solidarity and willingness to bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ (Galatians 6:2).

We pray that this Covenant Statement will be seen by brother and sister Anglicans as responding to some of their concerns. We pray that our overwhelming support for the Covenant may be a sign to them of our unwavering commitment to life in communion.

We pray as well that our Covenant will be useful for us all in healing relationships and opening the way for renewed solidarity in the service of Christ's work of reconciliation. We believe our Covenant Statement is a reflection of a fresh spirit of mutual forbearance and reconciliation among us. We faced into our deep divisions with an openness that has not characterized our recent past. We believe this marks the beginning of a new day in our life together as bishops and as the Episcopal Church.

We move now toward Holy Week with a renewed sense of community and of the work already accomplished for us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Very soon we and our sisters and brothers across the globe will be walking the way of the Cross together. Following the footsteps of Jesus, we cannot help but be opened to the needs of others as we move forward as fellow members of Christ's crucified and risen body, the Church. As the Apostle Paul tells us: "We have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life" (Romans 6:4).

— The House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church