Full communion is when two denominations develop a relationship based on a common confessing of the Christian faith and a mutual recognition of Baptism and sharing of the Lord’s Supper.All Christian denominations, by definition, share the Creeds. However, specific interpretations of how both baptism and the eucharist are recognized do differ fairly widely among Christian denominations. It's worth noting that Lutherans are Lutherans, while Episcopalians are Anglican, which means Calvinist. Lutherans have two sacraments, Anglicans seven. Anglicans differ among themselves on the meaning of the eucharist, for that matter. But in general, while all Christian denominations recognize baptism by water in the name of the Trinity, Protestant denominations since the 1960s have also admitted all baptized Christians to communion, so by this definition, all main line Protestants are already "in communion".
A more precise definition of "in communion" I've seen is that each denomination recognizes the episcopal actions of the other. Those would be, at least from Anglican and Catholic perspectives, ordination and confirmation. TEC, for instance, did not recognize my Presbyterian confirmation. Rome did not recognize my TEC confirmation. I'm assuming that after 2001, TEC would recognize ELCA confirmations, if I have this right. TEC would presumably also recognize ELCA ordinations.
The best reaction I saw to the 2001 move was a Wall Street Journal op-ed that said in practice, this would allow the two declining denominations to merge marginal parishes -- Bethany Lutheran East Podunk could merge with St Athanasius Episcopal East Podunk and go off into the sunset together. As far as I can tell, this doesn't happen very often, and in fact, an Episcopal priest who sounded off on this in an adult forum I attended about 2005 said the whole thing is pretty much a dead letter.
He went on, though, to say a great many issues had never been resolved or clarified. Let's say the two parishes above do merge. Which diocese are they in, in which denomination? If the rector is TEC but the diocese is Lutheran, does he get letters dimissory? What does he teach in confirmation class, two sacraments or seven? The TEC priest who discussed this basically said nobody had asked these or other questions, and the whole thing was basically a PR gesture.
Moving to the continuers expressing their own direction to move into "full communion", it seems to me the same issues apply. By and large, the continuing groups already recognize confirmations and ordinations from themselves and pretty much any other Anglican denomination -- about the only exception might be women from TEC or the ACNA. Take my word for it, there are gay continuing priests and bishops. For that matter, qualifications for ordination among the continuers are typically minimal no matter what. The same would apply to confirmation and catechesis -- look at "Bishop" Owen Williams, who has basic problems with things like the church calendar and should never have been either confirmed or ordained.
The ACA recognized Anthony Morello's ordination in the Philippine Independent Church, simply because the PIC is in communion with TEC, and TEC recognized it. I assume it didn't even ask his TEC Bishop Schofield for letters dimissory (I would have enjoyed seeing Schofield's reply). The ACA recognized Robert W Bowman's REC ordination, though it didn't bother to do a simple web search to discover his child pornography arrest.
But the ACA and the APA are already in full communion. I e-mailed APA Presiding Bishop Grundorf and asked whether, if the ACA recognized Bowman's orders, did the APA? Grundorf dodged this and said the APA did its own background checks. Considering the general level of competence among all these little splinter groups, they can say they're in full communion, but it will have as much effect as me claiming to be Holy Roman Emperor.
But I strongly suspect that none of the others wants to let Marsh or Strawn get in any position where they could threaten their own parishes.
