section_path: Three approaches to Christian unity/Protestantism/Anglicanism
section_name: Anglicanism
paragraph_text: Anglicanism
  
  The members of the Anglican Communion have generally embraced the Ecumenical Movement, actively participating in such organizations as the World Council of Churches and the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Most provinces holding membership in the Anglican Communion have special departments devoted to ecumenical relations; however, the influence of Liberal Christianity has in recent years caused tension within the communion, causing some to question the direction ecumenism has taken them.
  
  Each member church of the Anglican Communion makes its own decisions with regard to intercommunion. The 1958 Lambeth Conference recommended "that where between two Churches not of the same denominational or confessional family, there is unrestricted communio in sacris, including mutual recognition and acceptance of ministries, the appropriate term to use is ' full communion ', and that where varying degrees of relation other than 'full communion' are established by agreement between two such churches the appropriate term is ' intercommunion '."
  
  Full communion has been established between Provinces of the Anglican Communion and these Churches:
  
  Full communion has been established between the Anglican Churches of Europe (England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Gibraltar in Europe) and the Lutheran Churches of Northern Europe (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Estonia, Lithuania, Great Britain and the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church Abroad) with the Porvoo Communion.
  
  The Episcopal Church is currently engaged in dialogue with the following religious bodies:
  
  Worldwide, an estimated forty million Anglicans belong to churches that do not participate in the Anglican Communion, a particular organization limited to one province per country. In these Anglican churches, there is strong opposition to the ecumenical movement and to membership in such bodies as the World and National Councils of Churches. Most of these churches are associated with the Continuing Anglican movement or the movement for Anglican realignment. While ecumenicalism in general is opposed, certain Anglican church bodies that are not members of the Anglican Communion—the Free Church of England and the Church of England in South Africa, for example—have fostered close and cooperative relations with other evangelical (if non-Anglican) churches, on an individual basis.