Malines Conversations

The impetus for the conversations emerged largely out of the friendship between the high church Anglican, Charles Wood, 2nd Viscount Halifax, and the French Roman Catholic priest Fernand Portal [fr].

Cardinal Désiré Joseph Mercier, Archbishop of Malines, agreed to host the private ecumenical discussions desired by Lord Halifax and Abbé Portal.

The conversations were held in the Belgian primatial see of Malines (being the French name for the city of Mechelen) from 1921 to 1927 with tacit support from the Vatican and the archbishops of Canterbury and York, Randall Davidson and Cosmo Gordon Lang respectively.

The number of participants varied but included on the Anglican side Lord Halifax, bishops Walter Frere and Charles Gore, and Armitage Robinson (Dean of Wells).

Van Roey was personally less favourable to the idea of unity than his predecessor, and Cardinal Bourne, Archbishop of Westminster, successfully urged the Vatican to withdraw its encouragement, in line with Leo XIII's bull Apostolicae curae (1896), which had denied validity to Anglican orders.