Porvoo Communion

The Porvoo Communion is a communion of 15 mainly northern European Anglican and Lutheran churches. It was established in 1992 by an agreement entitled the Porvoo Common Statement which establishes full communion between and among the churches. The agreement was negotiated in the town of Järvenpää in Finland, but the Communion's name comes from the city of Porvoo where there was a joint celebration of Holy Communion after the formal signing in Järvenpää.

In 1938, the Archbishop of Canterbury invited the representatives of the Estonian Lutheran Church and Latvian Lutheran Church to Lambeth Palace in order to reach "altar and pulpit fellowship" between the Anglican and Baltic Lutheran churches. This process came to a formal conclusion with the establishment of the much wider Porvoo Communion in 1992. The churches involved are the Anglican churches of the British Isles and the Lutheran churches of the Northern European countries. Later negotiations brought the Anglican churches of the Iberian Peninsula into the agreement. These churches all share episcopal polity.

The Porvoo Communion has no central office or overseer. Each member church has a contact person, and these contact persons form a contact group which meets every year. Two bishops, one Lutheran and the other Anglican, are co-moderators of the contact group, and there are two co-secretaries also drawn from both traditions. There are also conferences and meetings organized to discuss issues of concern to the entire Communion.