Realignment News from Canada

From the Toronto Globe and Mail:

More Anglican parishes to leave the fold
Bishop's prediction follows on the heels of seven new congregations joining breakaway traditionalist movement

JILL MAHONEY

February 19, 2008

More conservative Anglican congregations will join those that have already cut ties with the Anglican Church of Canada, the head of a breakaway group predicts.

In the past week, seven parishes voted to leave the Anglican Church of Canada to seek the authority of a South American archbishop in a long-running dispute over theological issues, including the blessing of same-sex marriages, which they oppose.

So far, six Anglican parishes in Ontario, eight in British Columbia and three in Alberta have decided to operate outside the jurisdiction of the Anglican Church of Canada and joined the recently formed Anglican Network in Canada. Ten of the 17 breakaway parishes have voted to align themselves with the more orthodox, traditional Province of the Southern Cone, which covers most of South America. More are expected to consider the issue in the following week.

"I'm quite confident that this is just a beginning," said Bishop Donald Harvey, moderator of the recently formed Anglican Network in Canada, a "haven" for breakaway congregations that is under the jurisdiction of the South American archbishop, Gregory Venables.
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The Globe and Mail

Bishop Harvey said parishes across the country are considering the issue - and they are on his organization's mailing list - although he doesn't know of any others that have votes planned.

"It's at a discussion level. I think that what has happened in the last week will give those who were hesitant some courage to know that if they do make this [step], they won't be alone, that there are other parishes right across the country who have made similar moves," he said in an interview from his home in St. John's.

In voting to leave the Anglican Church of Canada, conservative Anglicans will retain ties with other Anglicans who share their traditional views. The congregations plan to seek episcopal oversight under Bishop Harvey, who is under the jurisdiction of Archbishop Venables of the Province of the Southern Cone.

Vianney Carrière, a spokesman for the Anglican Church of Canada, noted that despite the recent departures, there are still almost 2,300 congregations in the Canadian fold.

The congregations' decisions to break ties could lead to battles over church buildings, which at least some want to keep using. Before they voted, parishioners were told that the buildings belong to the Anglican Church of Canada, not to the congregations, and that they may be locked out.

"Our position, and I guess this is where the controversy is likely to come in, is that they cannot take property with them," Mr. Carrière said.

In the United States, the Anglican Episcopal diocese of Virginia fought several congregations in court over ownership of church buildings. The congregations voted to quit the Episcopal Church and affiliate with the Anglican Church in Nigeria.

As well, two priests of St. Mary's of the Incarnation in the Victoria suburb of Metchosin, which voted to leave the Anglican Church of Canada on Sunday, were disciplined. *****

Divisions in the church

Turmoil in the Anglican Church, as presented by the Anglican Network in Canada, an alternative group working outside the Anglican Church of Canada:

1998: An international meeting of leadership in the Anglican Church, held once a decade, endorses a non-binding resolution that states homosexual practice is incompatible with scripture and that it "...could not advise the legitimizing or blessing of same-sex unions nor ordaining those involved in same gender unions."

June, 2002: The Diocese of New Westminster ignores the so-called Lambeth Resolution 1.10 and becomes the first Anglican diocese in the world to formally authorize the blessing of same-sex unions.

June, 2007: The Canadian General Synod resolves that same-sex blessings are "not in conflict" with the core doctrine of the Anglican Church of Canada and rejects a motion upholding Lambeth Resolution 1.10 as the current standard of Anglican teaching.

November, 2007: The Province of the Southern Cone synod votes to welcome North American Anglicans into membership.

February, 2008: More than a dozen parishes across Canada vote on whether to request episcopal oversight of Donald Harvey of Newfoundland, a bishop within the Province of the Southern Cone under Archbishop Gregory Venables.