Anglican Communion Network Moderator Commends Virginia Churches

Bishop Robert Duncan today commended eight Virginia churches which announced the decisions of their congregations to re-affiliate with another branch of the Anglican Communion. He also assured them of the Anglican Communion Network’s prayers and continuing support. All but one of the parishes which announced the results of their congregation-wide votes are affiliates in good standing of the Anglican Communion Network, and will remain so.

“There is no question that the clergy and people of The Falls Church, Truro Church, Church of the Apostles, Christ the Redeemer, St. Stephen’s, Church of the Word, St. Margaret’s and Potomac Falls remain fully and faithfully Anglican,” said Bishop Duncan. “Their deliberate decision-making process and patient efforts over the last two years to chart a peaceful and prayerful course forward should be an example to all those contemplating their future relationship with The Episcopal Church. It is now up to the leadership of the Diocese of Virginia to choose between embracing a charitable parting of ways or pursuing destructive litigation. I pray they can see their way to selecting the first course,” he added.

Led by Bishop Martyn Minns of Truro Church and the Rev. John Yates of The Falls Church, a number of Virginia parishes began a 40–day process of discernment this fall. As that process has concluded, parishes who participated have held congregation-wide referendums to determine whether to remain within the Episcopal Church or to seek Anglican oversight from another source. A number of other parishes are expected to announce the results of their own congregational votes in the coming days.

“This is much more than a vote about property and ecclesiastical lines of authority. This vote is a statement by our parish about our understanding of Holy Scriptures and biblical orthodoxy,” wrote Jim Oakes, Senior Warden of Truro Church.

Following decisions to chart a course away from orthodox Christianity at The Episcopal Church’s 2003 and 2006 General Conventions, many provinces in the world-wide Anglican Communion have declared their ties with The Episcopal Church to be severed or highly impaired. Those provinces have continued in relationship with orthodox North American parishes and dioceses both inside and outside The Episcopal Church. In situations when a parting of ways has occurred between orthodox parishes and their dioceses committed to the new direction of The Episcopal Church, a number of Anglican provinces have responded favorably to those parishes’ requests for episcopal oversight.

Many of the Virginia parishes who have recently announced decisions to sever ties with the Episcopal Church are expected to join the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA), a mission of the Anglican Church of Nigeria. CANA is a member of the Common Cause Partners, an alliance of ten Anglican jurisdictions and ministries with some 200,000 Anglicans under their care committed to a unified orthodox Anglican witness in North America. Common Cause member ministries and jurisdictions are the American Anglican Council, the Anglican Coalition in Canada, the Anglican Communion Network, Anglican Essentials Canada, Anglican Mission in America, Anglican Network in Canada, Anglican Province of America, CANA, Forward in Faith North American and the Reformed Episcopal Church. The alliance is currently drafting articles for the formation of a federation.

    Comments & Responses

  1. From inside the congregation from those that saved it in the past.

    From The Episcopal News Service:

    “members of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Heathsville, Virginia, who opposed a recent vote by the majority of the congregation....”

    “At that meeting to discuss the resolutions, Margaret Cox, a St. Stephen’s member whose husband was rector from 1967 to 1972, said that a resolution to take possession of the St. Stephen’s property “sounds like taking something that does not belong to you.” She reiterated a number of the bequests and gifts given to the parish through the years, adding that “none of us owns this property; we only hold it in trust.

    Meade Kilduff, who was baptized at St. Stephen’s on December 28, 1918, told the same meeting that she liked the liturgy, the Episcopal Church’s history and tradition and the ways the Bible is emphasized “again and again.”

    “Last but not least I like the inclusiveness of our church. It is our gem,” she said. “I want to assure you, there is at St. Stephen’s a loyal and substantial group of communicants committed to staying at St. Stephen’s as an Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Virginia.”

    Cox and Kilduff were part of a contingent that re-built St. Stephen’s congregation after it dwindled to about 24 communicants in the 1970s, following a dispute with the diocese about vestry elections, Kirkpatrick said.”

    and

    “Mahaffey said that Cerar initially said at a congregational meeting late in 2003 that he would try to work within the framework of the Episcopal Church to make changes but that he would leave if he felt he could not continue in the church. He said at that meeting that if he left and if others joined him, they would not attempt to take over St. Stephen’s property, she said.

    In December 2003, Kirkpatrick said, a vestry survey showed that the majority of St. Stephen’s members wanted to remain in the Episcopal Church.

    However, Mahaffey recalled, the perceived failings of the Episcopal Church “became the topic of his sermons from that point forward. It did not matter what the liturgy was for any given Sunday or what the Gospel was, there was always a way to bring the topic around to that issue. We very often got the message that the Episcopal Church had sinned and needed to be repentant.”

    “It got to the point that our needs for pastoral oversight and ministry were not being met because of the single-minded focus on this issue. We were not hearing the Word and how that was applicable in our daily lives. I don’t think we were being ministered to in all of our needs.”

    There was a “steady outgo of people who found this message intolerable,” Kirkpatrick said, and a “steady influx” of people who approved of the leadership’s position.

    “Everyone down here knew that St. Stephen’s was taking this stance,” she said.

    Mahaffey said the growing disaffection with the Episcopal Church “has been very well staged.”

    “Now these ladies, they’re ready to do it again,” she said. “There is a very staunch core of older people who don’t want this to happen.”

    Posted by  on  12/20  at  11:48 AM

  2. There is only one Body of Christ with many members.

    Tuesday, December 19, 2006

    [Episcopal News Service] A Jamaican newspaper reports that Bishop Alfred Reid of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands has said his diocese does not support the decision of the members of two prominent Virginia parishes to leave the Episcopal Church and affiliate with the Church of Nigeria.

    “The Diocese of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands wishes to state that it is not a party to, nor does it support the action of the two congregations in the Diocese of Virginia, USA, which have voted to secede from the Episcopal Church of the USA over the issue of the ordination of Gene Robinson, a self-confessed homosexual, as bishop of New Hampshire,” Bishop Reid said in a statement issued late December 18, according to the Jamaica Observer .

    “The Church does not agree with the action of the Archbishop of Nigeria - Peter Akinola - in seeking to create a schism within the global Anglican Communion by facilitating the two Virginia churches in their break away,” Reid said.

    “Archbishop Akinola knows full well that the leadership of the worldwide Anglican Communion has been at pains to seek to deal in a holistic and timely manner with the issues raised ever since Robinson’s ordination,” he added.

    Reid said that immediately following Robinson’s consecration, “the Church in the Province of the West Indies took a clear position, in which we emphatically disagreed with that ordination and took our stand on the agreement reached by the bishops at the Lambeth Conference in 1998 - (Resolution 1:10) which states that homosexual behaviour is contrary to Scripture and therefore is inappropriate as a lifestyle to those who aspire to leadership in the Church.”

    Reid pointed to the appointment of the Archbishop of the West Indies, the Most Rev. Drexel Gomez, by the Archbishop of Canterbury to chair a committee for the establishment of a covenant to guide the entire Communion in the way forward.

    “It should be emphasised that the Church in Jamaica, in collegiality with others in the Province of the West Indies and the rest of the worldwide Communion, seeks to work for consensus, not divisiveness, and to maintain the fellowship of the Communion without compromising its integrity,” Reid said. “It is in that spirit that ongoing discussions on the most contentious and often painful matter will be conducted.”

    Posted by  on  12/20  at  11:15 PM
    3. Page 1 of 1 pages
Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.

Next entry: A Covenant for the Church of England: Signatories and Questions

Previous entry: The Falls Church and Truro Church Vote Overwhelmingly to Sever Ties with Episcopal Church

<< Back to main