Anglican continuing churches

The Anglican continuing churches are groups in one way or another following the Anglican tradition that have broken with Canterbury or their national Anglican church - most often, with ECUSA- on account of what they view as a failure of orthodoxy.

The current modest prominence of the movement started with the St. Louis Congress in 1977, held in response to ECUSA ordination of women to the priesthood. That congress formulated a theological statement, the Affirmation of St. Louis, which 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."

Before then the major Anglican group in the United States out of communion with Canterbury had been the Reformed Episcopal Church (REC), which had broken with the Protestant Episcopal Church, USA (now known as ECUSA) in 1873 over issues relating to the advance of Anglo-Catholicism. The major group in England had been the Free Church of England, founded in 1844 for similar reasons and now in communion with the REC.

The principles of the Affirmation of St. Louis provide some basis for unity in the movement, but "continuing" jurisdictions are numerous and often splinter and recombine. Reports put their number at somewhere between 20 and 40. Most groups use the 1928 Book of Common Prayer that preceded the prayer book adopted by ECUSA in 1979, although some use other forms.

The recent ordination of Gene Robinson as Bishop coadjutor of New Hampshire has given the movement a boost, but also diverted interest toward other structures, in particular The Anglican Mission in America (AMiA). While it has some things in common with the continuing churches, AMiA is a mission under the supervision of the Archbishop of Rwanda and the Archbishop of Southeast Asia, and is thus through them in communion with Canterbury. Acting on an earlier promise to settle the issue of the ordination of women, AMiA recently decided against ordaining women to the priesthood. Several who were priested in ECUSA before joining AMiA remain in good standing. In general, Anglo-Catholics favorable to the AMiA have been opposed to the practice while evangelicals (i.e. charismatics) have supported it.

External links

The following is a list of continuing and similar churches. [Note that anyone can edit this page to update information or correct errors or omissions simply by clicking on "Edit this page" below. Vandalism or introduction of tendentious material can easily be reversed with a couple of clicks by causing the page to revert to its pre-edit form.]

• The American Anglican Church.
• Anglican Catholic Church. Also see The Anglican Catholic Diocese of New Orleans, one of their dioceses.
• The Holy Catholic Church (Anglican Rite). Split with the group immediately above in 1997.
• The Anglican Catholic Church of Canada. The Canadian counterpart of The Anglican Church in America.
• The Anglican Church in America.
• The Anglican Diocese of the Good Shepherd.
• The Anglican Diocese of the Great Lakes.
• Anglican Independent Communion.
• Anglican Fathers of the Corpus Christi.
• The Anglican Orthodox Church.
• Anglican Province of America. Will merge with the Reformed Episcopal Church in 2008.
• Anglican Province of Christ the King.
• The Anglican Rite Old Catholic Church - San Antonio, TX.
• Anglican Rite Archdiocese of the Americas. A mission of the Orthodox Church of Canada.
• Anglican Use Parishes. Links to parishes in communion with the Pope rather than the Archbishop of Canterbury that use a revised form of the Book of Common Prayer, the Book of Divine Worship.
• Charismatic Episcopal Church.
• Christian Episcopal Church. Formerly part of the Diocese of the West of the Episcopal Missionary Church.
• Episcopal Missionary Church.
• The Episcopal Orthodox Church.
• Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches. Includes the Igreja Episcopal Evangélica no Brasil.
• Reformed Episcopal Church. Will merge with the Anglican Province of America in 2008.
• The Southern Episcopal Church.
• The Traditional Protestant Episcopal Church.
• The United Anglican Church.
• The United Episcopal Church of North America.

More information is available from the Anglicans Online "Not In the Communion" page.