The Malines Conversations were a series of informal discussions exploring possibilities of corporate reunion between the Roman Catholic Church

Roman Catholic Church

The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

 and the Church of England

Church of England

The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...

.

History

The conversations were held in the Belgian primatial

Primate (religion)

Primate is a title or rank bestowed on some bishops in certain Christian churches. Depending on the particular tradition, it can denote either jurisdictional authority or ceremonial precedence ....

 see

Episcopal See

An episcopal see is, in the original sense, the official seat of a bishop. This seat, which is also referred to as the bishop's cathedra, is placed in the bishop's principal church, which is therefore called the bishop's cathedral...

 of Malines

Mechelen

Mechelen Footnote: Mechelen became known in English as 'Mechlin' from which the adjective 'Mechlinian' is derived...

 (now normally referred to as Mechelen) from 1921 to 1927, largely on the initiative of Cardinal Mercier, but with tacit support from the Vatican

Holy See

The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...

 and the Archbishops of Canterbury and York

Archbishop of York

The Archbishop of York is a high-ranking cleric in the Church of England, second only to the Archbishop of Canterbury. He is the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of York and metropolitan of the Province of York, which covers the northern portion of England as well as the Isle of Man...

.

The number of participants varied but included on the Anglican side Lord Halifax, Bishops Frere

Walter Frere

Walter Howard Frere, CR was a co-founder of an Anglican religious order, the Community of the Resurrection and later bishop of Truro...

 and Gore

Charles Gore

Charles Gore was a British theologian and Anglican bishop.-Early life and education:Gore was the third son of the Honourable Charles Alexander Gore, and brother of the fourth Earl of Arran...

 and Armitage Robinson

Armitage Robinson

Joseph Armitage Robinson KCVO was a priest in the Church of England and scholar. He was successively Dean of Westminster and of Wells . He was educated at Liverpool College and Christ's College, Cambridge of which he became a Fellow...

 (Dean of Wells). The Catholic participants included Mercier himself, Batiffol

Pierre Batiffol

Pierre Batiffol was a prominent French catholic priest and Church historian, known particularly as a historian of dogma....

, Hemmer, Portal and Mercier's successor van Roey

Jozef-Ernest van Roey

Jozef-Ernest van Roey was a Belgian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Mechelen from 1926 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1927.-Biography:...

 who wound up the conversations in 1927. Dom Lambert Beauduin's 1925 paper L'église anglicane unie, mais non absorbée was particularly remarked.

Van Roey was personally less favourable to the idea of unity than his predecessor and Cardinal Bourne of Westminster successfully urged the Vatican to withdraw its encouragement, in line with Leo XIII's bull Apostolicae Curae

Apostolicae Curae

Apostolicae Curae is the title of a papal bull, issued in 1896 by Pope Leo XIII, declaring all Anglican ordinations to be "absolutely null and utterly void"...

(1896), which had denied validity to Anglican orders.