Continuing Anglican is a term used for a number of Christian churches which follow more traditional Anglican belief and worship. These churches have generally been formed by Anglicans who left one of the national churches of the Anglican Communion because, in their view, those churches have departed from orthodox Anglicanism. The movement originated in the Episcopal Church in the United States of America (ECUSA) and the Anglican Church of Canada. Related churches in other countries, such as the Anglican Catholic Church in Australia and the Church of England (Continuing), were founded later. The movement represents approximately 667 parishes across approximately 20 different continuing churches. Anglicanism in general has always been a balance between the emphases of Catholicism and Protestantism. Clergy and laity from both of those factions were active in the formation of the Continuing Anglican movement. The issues that most contributed to the founding of the "continuing churches" were the approval of women priests and the introduction of revised prayer books.
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Development
In 1976, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America (ECUSA) voted to approve the ordination of women to the priesthood and to the episcopate and also provisionally adopted a new and doctrinally controversial Book of Common Prayer, later called the 1979 version. During the following year, 1977, several thousand dissenting clergy and laypersons responded to those actions by meeting in St. Louis, Missouri under the auspices of the Fellowship of Concerned Churchmen and adopted a theological statement, the Affirmation of St. Louis [1]. The Affirmation expressed a determination "to continue in the Catholic Faith, Apostolic Order, Orthodox Worship and Evangelical Witness of the traditional Anglican Church, doing all things necessary for the continuance of the same." Out of this meeting came a new church with the provisional name of Anglican Church in North America (Episcopal). The first bishop of the church, the Right Reverend Charles Doren, was consecrated by a retired bishop of ECUSA, the Right Reverend Albert Chambers, along with Bishop Francisco Pagtakhan of the Philippine Independent Church as co-consecrator. Although expected to be the third bishop participating in Doren's consecration, the Right Reverend Mark Pae of the Anglican Church of Korea sent a letter of consent instead. (Consecrations of bishops normally involve three existing bishops as a guarantee of the candidate's worthiness, but there are many cases in church history of a single consecrator, and these are not considered invalid consecrations for lack of the customary three.) During the process of ratifying the new church's constitution, disputes developed which split its dioceses into two American churches and a separate Canadian church. These are the Anglican Catholic Church, the Diocese of Christ the King (later renamed the Anglican Province of Christ the King), and the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada. Several years after this, Bishop Doren and others founded the United Episcopal Church of North America in opposition to the alleged inhospitality of the other jurisdictions towards Low Churchmen.
Founding bishops
- Bishop Charles D.D. Doren - later founded the United Episcopal Church of North America
- Bishop James Mote - elected to lead the Anglican Catholic Church
- Bishop Robert Morse - later headed the Anglican Province of Christ the King
- Bishop Francis Watterson - later became a Roman Catholic priest
Theological approach
The continuing churches are generally Anglo-Catholic in approach, and their liturgies are usually more high church than low church. Most of them use the 1928 Book of Common Prayer that preceded the prayer book adopted by ECUSA in 1979, although some use Missals and other forms. The use of the Authorized Version of Holy Scripture (also known as the King James Version) as opposed to modern translations, is a distinguishing mark of most continuing churches. The principles of the Affirmation of St. Louis and, to a much lesser extent, the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion provide some basis for unity in the movement, but these jurisdictions are numerous and often splinter and recombine. Reports put their number at somewhere between 20 and 40, mostly in North America, but fewer than a dozen of the churches popularly called "continuing churches" can be traced back to the meeting in St. Louis. The 2005/06 Directory of Traditional Anglican and Episcopal Parishes, published by The Fellowship of Concerned Churchmen, contained information on over 400 Continuing Anglican parishes which requested to be listed.
Other Anglican churches
Other Anglican bodies not in communion with Canterbury include the Reformed Episcopal Church (REC) in the United States, which left the Episcopal Church in 1873 in opposition to the advance of Anglo-Catholicism; the Free Church of England, which was founded in 1844 for similar reasons; and the Anglican Orthodox Church, another Low Church body that was founded in 1963. These churches are not always considered to be Continuing Anglican churches, although the REC has recently moved to associate itself more closely with them by entering into agreements with a number of Continuing churches such as the Anglican Province of America. Both of them also have formal agreements in place with several provinces of the Anglican Communion that have been critical of ECUSA. See Anglican realignment.
List of churches
The following is a list of churches commonly called "Continuing Anglican," with the approximate number of North American parishes shown in parentheses. Some have additional affiliates in other countries.
- American Anglican Church. (11)
- Anglican Catholic Church. (90)
- Anglican Catholic Church of Canada. (42)
- Anglican Church in America. (100)
- Anglican Church in the USA. (20)
- Anglican Churches of America. (2)
- Anglican Episcopal Church. (4)
- Anglican Independent Communion Worldwide. (2)
- Anglican Orthodox Church. (7)
- Anglican Province of America. (77)
- Anglican Province of Christ the King. (46)
- Christian Episcopal Church. (4)
- Diocese of the Holy Cross (19)
- Episcopal Missionary Church. (41)
- Holy Catholic Church (Anglican Rite). (35)
- Orthodox Anglican Church. (11)
- Reformed Episcopal Church. (120)
- Southern Episcopal Church. (3)
- United Anglican Church. (11)
- United Episcopal Church of North America. (29)
See also
Further reading
- Divided We Stand: A History of the Continuing Anglican Movement by Douglas Bess, Tractarian Press, 2002, ISBN 0-9719636-0-6. Revised edition, Apocryphile Press, September 2006, ISBN 1-933993-10-3 This book received a positive review in the June, 2004, journal of Anglican and Episcopal History. Described as the "best published book on the Continuing Anglican Movement" by John P. Plummer, author of The Many Paths of the Independent Sacramental Movement.
External links
- List of churches not in the Anglican Communion, at anglicansonline.org. Includes weblinks for most of the Continuing Anglican Movement churches, some former churches now defunct, and some churches which are not Anglican but do have bishops.
- This map locates some of the Continuing Anglican parishes in the United States along with other Anglican parishes not affiliated with ECUSA. (You can limit the map to a particular jurisdiction by changing the ShowAll parameter to Province=APA, for instance. See the list of province acronyms at the bottom of the map.)
- The Measure of A Bishop: The Episcopi Vagantes, Apostolic Succession, and the Legitimacy of the Anglican "Continuing Church" Movement. A Master's thesis, written by a student at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, containing a great deal of historical information on Continuing Anglican and related Churches.
