Fifteen Australian churches have signed a covenant of co-operation that leaders hail as one of the most significant events in Australian church history.
Uniting Church of Australia president Dean Drayton, calling it "a really dramatic statement of intent and hope", said yesterday the covenant could not have happened anywhere else in the world.
Australia's Catholic ecumenical leader, Townsville Bishop Michael Putney, said: "It's not rhetoric or pious talk, it's a commitment to act. This is a very significant ecumenical event in Australian church history."
The 15 churches committed themselves to recognising common baptism and ministry, sharing property and clergy, and developing closer relations.
The churches are members of the National Council of Churches in Australia, which recently held its fifth forum in Adelaide.
They comprise the Catholic, Anglican, Uniting, Lutheran and Congregationalist churches, the Churches of Christ, Quakers, Salvation Army and seven Orthodox churches.
Council general secretary John Henderson said not every church had signed up to every section of the covenant, such as intercommunion.
Communion is still the biggest challenge: the Catholics and Orthodox churches do not allow people not baptised into their churches to take the sacrament. Few of the 15 churches have signed up to that.
Nevertheless, Mr Henderson said the covenant was a a special contribution. "We are trying to tease out what churches mean by common faith and common cause. We are very concerned about developing better ways for the churches to be in unison."
Mr Henderson said the public would notice when churches started sharing property and clergy, which was already happening.
"I recently visited a church near Perth that had both Catholic and Uniting Church signs out front, and which share equally," he said.
Bishop Putney, chairman of the Australian Catholic Bishops' Conference ecumenism committee, said yesterday the covenant was "a serious commitment we make to each other to acknowledge where we have reached and commit ourselves to go further".
All 15 churches agreed to deepen their relationships, to join in common prayer and to seek a more visible expression of unity. All but four Orthodox churches agreed to share physical resources, such as church buildings, and eight churches agreed to pursue common mission and ministry.
Anglicans agreed to share ordained ministers with the Lutheran and Uniting churches, and the Uniting Church with the Churches of Christ and Lutherans.
Dr Drayton said it was an enormous step for all the national churches to say they want to work towards union in the future.
"It's distant, but the intention is there. I don't think this could have happened in any other country in the world," he said.
"Since the (16th century) Reformation churches have more commonly kept on dividing and dividing again. But here are representatives of the church saying let's work towards a common goal. That's a really dramatic statement of intent and hope."