First Wisconsin Parish Leaves Diocese

www.virtueonline.org
12/31/2008

St. Edmund's Episcopal Church in Elm Grove, a congregation founded in 1874 in Milwaukee, WI, voted overwhelmingly this week to leave the diocese and The Episcopal Church. They will move their canonical jurisdiction to the Convocation of North American Anglicans (CANA) based in Herndon, VA.

The Wisconsin parish congregation is following some 100 Episcopal parishes and four dioceses that have left The Episcopal Church during the past two years because they view the National Church as increasingly hostile to orthodox, traditional Christian belief and practice.

And this part I really like:

In a formal letter to Bishop Steven Miller, the Episcopal Bishop of Milwaukee, they said the issues were theological and "beyond suffragan episcopal bedrooms in New England". The congregation was contending for the "'faith once delivered to the saints"' and nothing less.

"We are defending the irrevocable stance on biblical authority and order firmly held by the vast majority of the world's Anglicans," they wrote.

"People of Faith are not leaving the Episcopal Church; The Episcopal Church has left them."