WHEREAS, The House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church, in their "Mind of the House" Resolution (April 3, 2000), stated that "The Episcopal Church's recognition of the full authenticity of the ministers ordained in the ELCA or its predecessor bodies (CCM para. 15) is made in view of the voted intention of that church to enter the ministry of the historic episcopate (para. 18). According to catholic tradition of which The Episcopal Church is a part, the order of the historic episcopate properly includes within itself all three of these orders [i.e., Bishop, Presbyter, Deacon], [emphasis added] ;" and,

WHEREAS, The Episcopal Church stated that its adoption of Called to Common Mission at its 2000 General Convention in Denver, Colorado, was based on The Episcopal Church and the ELCA "...having agreed that the threefold ministry of Bishops, Presbyters, and Deacons in historic succession will be the future pattern of the one ordained ministry shared corporately within the two churches in full communion..."[emphasis added]; and,

WHEREAS, the proposal to ordain diaconal ministers, brought by the ELCA Task Force on Ministry, was overwhelmingly rejected by the 1993 ELCA Churchwide Assembly; and,

WHEREAS, the Concordat of Agreement, which stated that "the threefold ministry of bishops, presbyters, and deacons in historic succession will be the future pattern of the one ordained ministry...shared corporately within the two churches (¶3) was rejected by the 1997 ELCA Churchwide Assembly; and,

WHEREAS, the specific language about the threefold ministry as the future pattern of the shared ministry was deleted in CCM which was adopted by the 1999 ELCA Churchwide Assembly; and,

WHEREAS, the ELCA Bishops' Tucson Resolution, which was referenced within the text of CCM (¶3) and appended to the document of CCM, clearly states that "CCM contains no requirement that the ELCA must eventually adopt the threefold order of ministry;" and, thus, included in the ELCA's version of CCM [http://www.elca.org/ea/Relationships/ccmrevised.html], but the Tucson Resolution is not a part of The Episcopal Church's version of CCM [http://www.episcopalchurch.org/ecumenism/common.html], [emphasis added] ; and,

WHEREAS, if the ELCA Bishops' Tucson Resolution were to have been deleted from the ELCA's version of CCM presented to the 1999 ELCA Churchwide Assembly in Denver, it is likely that the assembly would not have adopted CCM; and,

WHEREAS, it is important for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America as well as for The Episcopal Church to be clear about whether or not the threefold ministry will, at some point in the future, be "shared corporately within the two churches;" therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED, that the 2001 ELCA Northeastern Minnesota Synod Assembly memorialize the 2001 ELCA Churchwide Assembly to take action necessary to obtain official clarification from the ELCA and from The Episcopal Church on the status of the Tucson Resolution in light of The Episcopal Church's House of Bishop's "Mind of the House" Resolution and the actions of the 2000 General Convention of The Episcopal Church both of which have contradicted the Tucson Resolution (A.1.) which says, "CCM contains no requirement that the ELCA must eventually adopt the threefold order of ministry;" and,

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED , that the 2001 ELCA Northeastern Minnesota Synod Assembly memorialize the 2001 ELCA Churchwide Assembly to encourage The Episcopal Church, at its 2003 General Convention, to adopt the ELCA Conference of Bishop's Tucson Resolution as an amendment attached to CCM thereby reconciling an important discrepancy between the ELCA's version of CCM and The Episcopal Church's.