The Bishop of Cork, the Right Reverend Paul Colton, will represent the Church of Ireland at, and take part in, the Consecration of two new Swedish Bishops in Uppsala, Sweden on Sunday 31st August next.

Since 1992 the Church of Ireland has been in full-communion with the Church of Sweden (and seven other Lutheran Churches in the Nordic-Baltic region) on foot of an agreement known as the Porvoo (a town in Finland where the participants in the ecumenical conversations met) Agreement.

Bishop Colton was himself a participant in the conversations between 1989 and 1992 which led to this ground-breaking ecumenical agreement between four Anglican Churches (in Great Britain and Ireland) and eight Nordic and Baltic Churches. Members of each Church are recognised as full members of all of the others. There is full interchangeability of ordained clergy between the churches also.

Bishop Colton:

Often the ecumenical successes of our age receive little public attention in favour of disagreements between and within churches. This, however, is an example of a new and faithful partnership - ecumenical progress - that is working away steadily to draw together over 40 million Christians in Europe in common partnership and Church work.

Dean Lennart Koskinen is to be ordained Bishop of Visby (an island Diocese in the Baltic), and Dr Carl Axel Aurelius is to be ordained Bishop of Gothenburg, both in a Service in Uppsala Cathedral on Sunday 31st August.

The Porvoo Churches' website may be found at http://www.porvoochurches.org