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Friday, June 26, 2009
Arch Bishop Williams reduced to Workshop Speaker
According to the Epsicopal News Service :
Apparently the recognized leader of the Anglican Communion, has not been asked to preach or lead a Eucharist at GenCon. This of course would be the first time in many years (30+?), that the Archbishop has not been allowed to address the convention floor in a manner worthy of his title and all respect which is due.
Former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, preached at a General Convention Eucharist in 1997. Robert Runcie also preached at a General Convention Eucharist in 1985. And Donald Coggan also preached at a General Convention Eucharist in 1976.
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams will make a presentation addressing the world's economic crisis during a panel discussion webcast live July 8 from the Episcopal Church's 76th General Convention, scheduled to take place July 8-17 in Anaheim, California.
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson will host the event, to be called "Christian Faithfulness in the Global Economic Crisis" at the Anaheim Hilton from 6:15 to 7:30 p.m. PDT (10:30 p.m. EDT).
Apparently the recognized leader of the Anglican Communion, has not been asked to preach or lead a Eucharist at GenCon. This of course would be the first time in many years (30+?), that the Archbishop has not been allowed to address the convention floor in a manner worthy of his title and all respect which is due.
Former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, preached at a General Convention Eucharist in 1997. Robert Runcie also preached at a General Convention Eucharist in 1985. And Donald Coggan also preached at a General Convention Eucharist in 1976.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Orthodox Church renounces ecunemical ties with TEC in Favor of ACNA
The Living Church is Reporting
His Beatitude, the Archbishop of Washington, Metropolitan of All America and Canada of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) announced recently that his church has ended its ecumenical relations with The Episcopal Church, and will establish instead formal ecumenical relations with the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA).
His Beatitude, the Archbishop of Washington, Metropolitan of All America and Canada of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) announced recently that his church has ended its ecumenical relations with The Episcopal Church, and will establish instead formal ecumenical relations with the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA).
Metropolitan Jonah of the OCA made the announcement June 24 at a plenary session of the ACNA’s founding convocation at St Vincent’s Cathedral, Bedford, Texas.
An autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church, the OCA was established by eight Russian monks in 1794 on Kodiak Island, Alaska. Known as the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church in America, it was granted autocephaly, or autonomy, by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1970. The OCA has 700 congregations, monasteries and communities spread across the United States and Canada.
Metropolitan Jonah, 49, was reared in The Episcopal Church, but joined the OCA while a student at the University of California, San Diego, in 1978. He was elected metropolitan last year as a reform candidate, 11 days after he was consecrated Bishop of Fort Worth.
Asked what the OCA’s stance toward ecumenism might be under his tenure, Metropolitan Jonah said, “If the matter concerns The Episcopal Church USA, then this dialogue has stopped.
“We engage in dialogue with Episcopalian traditionalists, many of whom embrace the Orthodox faith,” Jonah told a Moscow-based weblog. “And I personally, and our entire synod, give great attention to bringing these people into the fold of the Orthodox Church in America.”
Pastor Rick Warren Addresses ACNA Assembly
From the ACNA websitePastor Rick Warren addressed over 800 delegates and attendees at the Anglican Church in North America’s inaugural assembly today. Urging the audience to focus on the mission of the Church and “winning one more for Jesus,” the influential pastor encouraged and prayed for the new church and its representatives.
Welcomed by Archbishop-designate Bob Duncan of the Anglican Church in North America and Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church in America, Pastor Warren stepped on to the stage at St. Vincent’s Cathedral Bedford, Texas, to a standing ovation. Warren spoke for the next 45 minutes, giving practical advice to the gathered clergy and church leaders on such matters as nurturing Christian maturity, sharing the faith and building healthy, growing churches.
Reminding the audience to stay focused on God and His love for people, Warren said, “Jesus didn’t die to save America, he died to save Americans.” The work of the church, he said, was to preach the Gospel and make disciples. “Don’t ask God to bless what you are doing. Do what God is blessing.”
Along that theme and in the context of the current lawsuits brought against many in the ACNA, Pastor Warren said, “The church has never been made up of buildings, it’s made up of people,” and “Christ did not die for property… You may lose the steeple, but you will not lose the people.”
After the speech, which was punctuated by lengthy applause, Pastor Warren took questions from the audience.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
New Anglican Church poses dilemna
From the Washington Times ...
By Julia Duin
The Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/
June 17, 2009
The Anglican Church in North America will be formally founded next week, challenging the legitimacy of the U.S. Episcopal Church and posing a dilemma for the worldwide Anglican Communion over who represents Anglicanism in the United States and Canada.
When 232 delegates to the ACNA convention at St. Vincent's Cathedral in Bedford, Texas, approve the organization's constitution and canons on Monday, Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan will become archbishop for this "emerging" 39th province of the communion, consisting of several groupings that have left the Episcopal Church over issues related to sexuality and biblical authority.
A ceremony celebrating Bishop Duncan's installation is set for June 24 at Christ Church in the Dallas suburb of Plano, the ACNA's largest parish, with more than 2,000 members. Also among the ACNA's members are 11 Northern Virginia parishes, including the historic The Falls Church and Truro parishes, which left the Episcopal Church to found the Convocation of Anglicans in North America.
At a news conference in December, Bishop Duncan said God is "displacing" the Episcopal Church in favor of the ACNA. The Texas gathering is the conservative alternative to the Episcopal Church's triennial convention next month in Anaheim, Calif.
There is no precedent in the communion for a country to have more than one recognized province, and Episcopalians who back the move have maintained that the U.S. and Canadian churches no longer preach and believe historic Anglicanism.
The formalities cap a six-year progression out of the 2-million-member Episcopal Church by Episcopalians over the U.S. church's increasing doctrinal liberalism, which has prompted many to leave to other denominations, though others have hung on in the hope a conservative alternative would arise.
ACNA spokesman Peter Frank said the gathering will be inspirational instead of legislative. "This is really about mobilizing people to do mission at the local parish level," he said.
Speakers will include such non-Episcopalians as Rick Warren, the pastor of California's Saddleback evangelical megachurch, and Metropolitan Jonah, head of the Orthodox Church in America. Also attending will be the Rev. Todd Hunter, a church planter for the Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMIA), one of the 28 groups represented at ACNA.
Episcopal Church spokeswoman Neva Rae Fox said the denomination was "aware" of the gathering and officials were concerned that one of its active bishops, Peter Beckwith of the Springfield, Ill., diocese, may be participating.
A message left at Bishop Beckwith's office was not returned Tuesday.
More than 70 of the Episcopal Church's 110 dioceses are in serious financial straits, and its membership is dropping precipitously, with an average Sunday attendance of 727,822.
The ACNA, with an average attendance of 100,000, is quickly adding congregations and forming new dioceses. Its numbers go beyond the adherents of 13 of the 38 provinces that belong to the Anglican Communion.
The new group has several hurdles, not the least of which is that Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, leader of the Anglican Communion, has yet to recognize the ACNA as a legitimate Anglican alternative to the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada.
However, when Bishop Duncan met last Oct. 15 with Archbishop Williams, the archbishop instructed the Pittsburgh bishop to submit an application for the new province.
Independently, seven overseas Anglican archbishops have recognized the ACNA, with most also cutting ties with the U.S. Episcopal Church. This could aggravate existing conflicts in the worldwide communion by adding the issue of who recognizes what North American church.
Of the four dioceses that have left the Episcopal Church and joined the ACNA en masse, each one is fighting the Episcopal Church for rights to millions of dollars in property the dioceses have taken with them.
In three of those dioceses - San Joaquin in Sacramento, Calif.; Quincy in Peoria, Ill., and Fort Worth, Texas - Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefforts Schori has appointed alternate bishops to replace those who have departed. In Pittsburgh, she has appointed a standing committee.
By Julia Duin
The Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/
June 17, 2009
The Anglican Church in North America will be formally founded next week, challenging the legitimacy of the U.S. Episcopal Church and posing a dilemma for the worldwide Anglican Communion over who represents Anglicanism in the United States and Canada.
When 232 delegates to the ACNA convention at St. Vincent's Cathedral in Bedford, Texas, approve the organization's constitution and canons on Monday, Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan will become archbishop for this "emerging" 39th province of the communion, consisting of several groupings that have left the Episcopal Church over issues related to sexuality and biblical authority.
A ceremony celebrating Bishop Duncan's installation is set for June 24 at Christ Church in the Dallas suburb of Plano, the ACNA's largest parish, with more than 2,000 members. Also among the ACNA's members are 11 Northern Virginia parishes, including the historic The Falls Church and Truro parishes, which left the Episcopal Church to found the Convocation of Anglicans in North America.
At a news conference in December, Bishop Duncan said God is "displacing" the Episcopal Church in favor of the ACNA. The Texas gathering is the conservative alternative to the Episcopal Church's triennial convention next month in Anaheim, Calif.
There is no precedent in the communion for a country to have more than one recognized province, and Episcopalians who back the move have maintained that the U.S. and Canadian churches no longer preach and believe historic Anglicanism.
The formalities cap a six-year progression out of the 2-million-member Episcopal Church by Episcopalians over the U.S. church's increasing doctrinal liberalism, which has prompted many to leave to other denominations, though others have hung on in the hope a conservative alternative would arise.
ACNA spokesman Peter Frank said the gathering will be inspirational instead of legislative. "This is really about mobilizing people to do mission at the local parish level," he said.
Speakers will include such non-Episcopalians as Rick Warren, the pastor of California's Saddleback evangelical megachurch, and Metropolitan Jonah, head of the Orthodox Church in America. Also attending will be the Rev. Todd Hunter, a church planter for the Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMIA), one of the 28 groups represented at ACNA.
Episcopal Church spokeswoman Neva Rae Fox said the denomination was "aware" of the gathering and officials were concerned that one of its active bishops, Peter Beckwith of the Springfield, Ill., diocese, may be participating.
A message left at Bishop Beckwith's office was not returned Tuesday.
More than 70 of the Episcopal Church's 110 dioceses are in serious financial straits, and its membership is dropping precipitously, with an average Sunday attendance of 727,822.
The ACNA, with an average attendance of 100,000, is quickly adding congregations and forming new dioceses. Its numbers go beyond the adherents of 13 of the 38 provinces that belong to the Anglican Communion.
The new group has several hurdles, not the least of which is that Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, leader of the Anglican Communion, has yet to recognize the ACNA as a legitimate Anglican alternative to the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada.
However, when Bishop Duncan met last Oct. 15 with Archbishop Williams, the archbishop instructed the Pittsburgh bishop to submit an application for the new province.
Independently, seven overseas Anglican archbishops have recognized the ACNA, with most also cutting ties with the U.S. Episcopal Church. This could aggravate existing conflicts in the worldwide communion by adding the issue of who recognizes what North American church.
Of the four dioceses that have left the Episcopal Church and joined the ACNA en masse, each one is fighting the Episcopal Church for rights to millions of dollars in property the dioceses have taken with them.
In three of those dioceses - San Joaquin in Sacramento, Calif.; Quincy in Peoria, Ill., and Fort Worth, Texas - Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefforts Schori has appointed alternate bishops to replace those who have departed. In Pittsburgh, she has appointed a standing committee.
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