Source: Christian Science Monitor, New York Times, BBC, Wall Street Journal
Quincy, Ill. -- The long-running but slow rending to the "Anglican Communion" -- a loose confederation of national churches that trace their heritage to the Church of England -- got another tug today, when conservatives in the US and Canada formed a rival Anglican province in North America.
On Wednesday, a network of dissident clerics, parishes, and dioceses from the United States and Canada unveiled a draft constitution in Quincy, Ill. for what they say will be a unified entity that they hope will be recognized by Anglicans elsewhere in the world.
The provocative bid to form a new province runs against Anglican tradition. "This is contrary to both the traditions of the church as well as recent pronouncements of the Anglican Communion," says the Rev. Ian Douglas of the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass, according to CS Monitor.
The proposed new province, called the "Anglican Church in North America", will have about 100,000 members and lays disputed claim to four Episcopal dioceses and dozens of parishes in the United States and Canada that recently voted to leave the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada.
"There is room within the Episcopal Church for people with different views, and we regret that some have felt the need to depart from the diversity of our common life in Christ," a spokesman for the Episcopal church said in its only statement on the matter, according to Wall Street Journal.
The dissidents claim that the US and Canadian churches have broken with traditional Christianity in many ways, but the development that precipitated their departure was the decision to ordain an openly gay bishop and to bless gay unions, New York Times reports.
Although title to several church properties is disputed by the Episcopal church, the Anglican Church in North America will include members of parishes and dioceses who recently left the 2 million-member Episcopal Church, as well as several splinter groups that left US and Canadian churches in earlier periods.
Some see this move as the biggest challenge yet to the authority of a church that has faced an unending series of challenges over the past several years in a battle over a number of issues of theology, tradition, and geography.
But Jim Naughton, a spokesman for the Episcopal Diocese of Washington in Seattle, said "this is not a split. It's a splinter. It's not an overwhelmingly large group of people.
The attempt to create an overlapping jurisdiction on the continent is unprecedented, Christian Science Monitor reports. The Communion is a family of Anglican churches in 38 geographical "provinces" around the world. The churches have a longstanding practice of not interfering in each other's areas.
That practice was abandoned two years ago as bishops from Africa and from South America began welcoming dissident US parishes into their provinces. Starting this summer, the break became even more stark as four US dioceses (collections of parishes with a common bishop) formally broke ties with the Episcopal church to align themselves with the Province of the Southern Cone in South America, run by Archbishop Gregory Venables.
In November, conventions in two Episcopal dioceses – Quincy in Illinois and Fort Worth in Texas – voted to leave and align themselves temporarily with the conservative archbishop of the Southern Cone. Two dioceses -- San Joaquin in California, and Pittsburgh -- had earlier done the same.
Bishops leading the shift say the dioceses are moving with them. Episcopal leaders say that's not the case.
"Individuals can always leave the church, but dioceses and parishes cannot," says the Rev. Charles Robertson, canon for Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori. "The diocese is a constituent part of something larger."
Some see the new province as a bid to eventually replace TEC as the recognized US church; others say it's a means to prevent a schism in the Communion.
"Better to have two Anglican jurisdictions rather than to have a shattered Communion," says Archbishop Peter Jensen of Sydney, Australia, a leader among the global conservatives.
But doubts remain as to whether or how the new alliance will be recognized by the wider Anglican Communion, BBC reports.
The Communion's Secretary General, Canon Kenneth Kearon, has told the BBC that it is entering what he called uncharted waters, and he is calling on the leaders of the new Church to act in accordance with the Communion's existing regulations.
"The issue as I see it is whether in fact this body, or province as they're calling it, wishes to be recognized as a province of the Anglican Communion," he said.
"And I think if they do, there are clear procedures by which that might be explored. And I do urge those involved to address the structures of the Communion."
But some of those leading the new grouping appear to have little patience for such lectures from English priests like Kearon.
Those supporting the new North American Church believe that Anglicanism's structures have been unable to safeguard the Church's unity, and they now look to leadership from a group of largely African leaders.
Bishop Minns, a priest who led his large, historic church in Virginia out of the Episcopal Church two years ago and was subsequently ordained a bishop by the Anglican Archbishop of Nigeria, told the New York Times: "One of the questions a number of the primates are asking is why do we still need to be operating under the rules of an English charity, which is what the Anglican Consultative Council does. Why is England still considered the center of the universe?"
Naughton, canon for communications and advancement in the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, and a liberal who frequently blogs on Anglican affairs, said he doubted that a rival Anglican province could grow much larger.
“I think this organization does not have much of a future because there are already a lot of churches in the United States for people who don’t want to worship with gays and lesbians,” he said. “That’s not a market niche that is underserved.”
Source: Conservatives Expected to Split Episcopal Church | New York Times
Conservative bishops propose a competing North American Anglican church | Christian Science Monitor
North American Anglicans to split | BBC
Episcopals Form Rival Church | Wall Street Journal