At a recent Sunday service at St. Philip’s Anglican Church, the word of God was served with cake.

That morning, May 8, the Venerable Christopher Page told his congregation of about 200 people they’d be staying put.

It was a day of celebration ”“ and some disappointment ”“ as the parish learned it would no longer be moving to the somewhat larger St. Mary the Virgin Church as part of a restructuring plan by the Anglican Diocese of B.C. that proposed the closure of six churches in Greater Victoria.

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Just as she was preparing to mail out information to the first group of Anglican participants taking an online suicide prevention course, Cynthia Patterson received a letter from a parishioner in an indigenous community in Eastern James Bay, Ont. A 15-year-old girl had hanged herself in her grandparents’ basement.

To Patterson, appointed coordinator of the Council of the North’s suicide prevention program in 2009, this only served to underscore the urgency of addressing the high incidence of suicide among the country’s aboriginal people.

This spring, about 20 ordained and lay, aboriginal and non-aboriginal volunteers from the diocese of Moosonee took part in “River of Life,” an online suicide awareness and prevention course developed by the Calgary-based Center for Suicide Prevention. Volunteers from the diocese of Keewatin are to follow next.

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A battle over scripture has become a war over bricks and mortar at St. Aidan’s Anglican Church.

The Diocese of Huron is taking its former parishioners at the Windsor church to court to evict them from the property at the corner of Wyandotte Street East and Westminster Boulevard.

Monday is the first day of trial in a dispute that dates back to 2008 when the majority of St. Aidan’s members voted to break away from the Anglican Church of Canada and join the more conservative Anglican Network in Canada.

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The House of Bishops of the Anglican Church of Canada has rejected calls to permit those not baptized to be allowed to receive the “sacrament of the holy Eucharist.”

At the close of their April 11-15 meeting in Niagara Falls, Ontario the bishops reaffirmed the church’s canons and traditional practice stating only those baptized would be permitted to receive. “We do not see this as changing for the foreseeable future,” the bishops said.

The bishops’ debate follows a March 7 “Guest Reflection” published in Canada’s Anglican Journal by Dr. Gary Nicolosi who argued for a relaxation in the church’s Eucharistic discipline as a way of attracting more people to church.

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On May 1, four groundbreaking churches celebrated 10 years of full communion in joint celebrations on the U.S.-Canadian border. The four are the Anglican Church of Canada, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, the Episcopal Church in the United States of America and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).

Two parishes, St. Paul’s Anglican in Fort Erie, Ont., and Holy Trinity Lutheran in Buffalo, N.Y., held simultaneous services at 3 p.m. to honour the call to a common mission first made in the Waterloo Declaration of 2001.

And the celebrations did not go unnoticed in the international church community. “The eyes of the world were on this service,” said the Rev. Donald McCoid, a member of the executive for ELCA ecumenical and inter-religious relations. At the close of ceremonies in Buffalo, he read out congratulatory statements from the general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation and the general secretary of the World Council of Churches , who commended the two denominations on their decade of working together in unity and Christian mission. “Years later, your churches have much to celebrate””shared ministries between Anglican, Episcopal and Lutheran parishes in Canada and the United States,” wrote the Rev. Martin Junge, general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation. Of the courageous decisions that set this cooperation in motion, he said, “These were truly acts of faith.”

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Facing financial distress, the diocese of Moosonee will ask its synod in June to decide whether the diocese can continue its operations or whether it should be dissolved so that other forms of ministry can be pursued.

Three choices will be presented when the 45th diocesan synod meets June 3 to 5 in Timmins, Ont.: “Stay-as-is” but launch a major fundraising campaign; dissolve the diocese completely and transfer parishes to surrounding dioceses with their consent; or adopt the “historic Moosonee option,” where the diocese will be composed mainly of indigenous congregations.

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Old age has crept up on St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Holmedale.

Now 112 years old, the petite church building, with seating for 200, will close its doors -at least to congregants of the Anglican faith -after a special May 8 service that honours its past.

Audrey Elcomb, 89, plans to have a little cry.

“When we have that service and I know it’s the end, well, I better bring a lot of Kleenex.”

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[Gail Stevenson]…recalled Rev Harry Robinson’s world renowned ministry which she described as “very powerful, very transforming and very Biblical”. Visitors to Vancouver ”“ especially from Toronto and England ”“would come to St John’s because of his preaching. She said the ministry carried on under Rev David Short, describing it as “a seamless transition”¦ very evangelical, very Biblically based”.

–From an ANIC description of testimony given in court in 2009

The ground had been prepared for this the year before. When we first came to Canada in 1964 we decided to compromise and become Presbyterians. Mollie had been raised in the happy warmth of Cheam Baptist Church. She was ill at ease in the somber liturgy and music of Anglican worship. She gagged at the antiquated jargon of Canons and Archdeacons, Lent and Ember days, Quinquagesima, Sexagesima, Septuagesima, collects and rubrics. None of our four children had been baptized as babies. I had also come to the conclusion that the Anglican denomination I had been ordained in was so stuck in its traditions that it could hardly survive the counterculture of the sixties. I hated its refusal to accept others to communion till they were properly confirmed.

So we used to drive down the Don Valley Parkway and across to Knox Presbyterian on Spadina Avenue. We loved the long rich sermons of Bill Fitch. Then some good friends in Don Mills asked us to come and join them in St. Mark’s Presbyterian. When we moved to Collingsbrook Road, which was then at the northern limit of Metro Toronto, we linked up with Donald MacLeod at Bridlewood Presbyterian. They used to meet at Don Mills Collegiate where our children, Rachel and Peter, had begun high school. For the second time I applied to be accepted as a Presbyterian minister, but got cold feet as I filled in the forms.

One evening in the spring of 1970 Mollie and I decided to attend the evening service at Little Trinity on King Street in the run down part of Cabbage Town. At that time Hippies were not appreciated among respectable Christians. As we arrived we could see the building was packed with young people wearing bellbottom Jeans and flower child dresses. A beautiful girl named Gunta Sturis greeted me at the door and gave me a flower and a kiss. That settled it. If this was what Anglicans were about, I wanted back in.

For the first time in her life Mollie delighted in the Anglican services led by Harry Robinson. We were thrilled and encouraged by many new friends in our new family. We were moved by the long haired students kneeling next to Bay Street business men around the circular communion rail. And then Bill Foley at the organ would begin the notes of a charismatic song, and the church sounded like heaven.

–Robert Brow, A Personal View of the Twentieth Century, Chapter 9, my emphasis

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One of the great Canadian Anglican leaders of the last generation–KSH.

The idea of a shared national office, possibly located in Ottawa, for the Anglican Church of Canada and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC), is receiving mixed reviews from respective executive councils. In fact, said Archbishop Fred Hiltz, leadership of the Anglican Church of Canada may need to “step back” and consider more carefully the benefits of a shared national office.

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Today we are developing new mature relationships with the aboriginal peoples of Canada and they are our sisters and brothers in faith and mission. Our clergy in Quebec are becoming totally bilingual so as to work comfortably within a French culture. The tag in western Canada of being the “English Church” no longer holds true.

I submit that it is time for us to be fully grown up and give thanks for all we have received from the Church of England, and others, but have a name that more truly expresses who we are. I believe that the name, “The Episcopal Church of Canada,” would do just that.

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Hundreds of people at a Vancouver church offered prayers and donations Sunday for the victims of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, as they were told not even religion could explain the unspeakable tragedy that has befallen the east Asian country.

The 130-year-old Christ Church Anglican Cathedral in downtown Vancouver held a service Sunday afternoon that alternated between English and Japanese, bringing together Japanese-Canadians, members of other local Anglican congregations and people from outside the faith — many still coming to grips with the devastation unfolding across the Pacific.

The 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami have together killed at least 8,600 people, with nearly 13,000 still missing and another 452,000 living in shelters. They have also sparked a continuing crisis at the damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant which has been leaking radiation since the natural disasters.

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[The] Rt. Rev. Bill Hockin, retired bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Fredericton, has delivered Lenten and Advent addresses in downtown Fredericton since he was ordained a bishop in 1998….This year’s Lenten series…[is] entitled “God: The Rumours Persist – Words For Weary Pilgrims….”

In explaining the title of this year’s series, Hockin said, “It is drawn from a recent series of books with intriguing titles like A Rumour of God by Robert Sibley, Rumours of Angels by Peter Berger, and Rumours by Philip Yancey.

“All these books seem to be a response to the new ‘God talk’ that is filling the book shelves and libraries over the last 15 years.

“In spite of the many prophecies in the late ’80s regarding the death of religion by the 21st century, we have been surprised with a resurgence of faith in our time. God is back. The rumours persist.”

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Consider the fact that most Anglican churches now celebrate the eucharist every Sunday at every service. Yet many people are not baptized. How do we reach them? Do we invite them to church for Sunday dinner and tell them they cannot eat the food?

How, in our multicultural and pluralistic society, can our churches be places of hospitality if we exclude table fellowship with the non-baptized? This is not an academic question. In Canada, a growing number of the population is not baptized. Included are people from different religious traditions or people with no religious affiliation at all. Quite likely, some are our grandchildren or great-grandchildren, whose parents neglected or refused to have them baptized.

How can the church effectively minister in a post-Christian world where a significant percentage of the population is not baptized? Some Anglican churches are attempting to meet this challenge by becoming open and inclusive faith communities, ready and willing to support people in their spiritual journeys. They understand that the Anglican tradition has never been content to adopt a sectarian mentality, to insulate itself from culture or to refuse to connect with an unchurched population.

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Father Martin Carter is one of only a handful of Roman Catholic priests in Canada who are married.

Formerly a married part-time Anglican minister, Carter, 65, of Charlottetown was a granted rare permission by the Pope to become a Catholic priest after he converted.

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In a joint statement issued after a “Consultation of Bishops in Dialogue” meeting held in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania the church leaders said they had shared testimonies about partnership mission work. Through this a common thread had emerged “our experience of finding ourselves in each other.”

“Across the globe, across the Communion, we actually really need one another,” the bishops’ statement said. “We are stronger in relationship than when we are apart. This, we believe, is a work of engaging in Communion building rather than Communion breaking. In the words of the Toronto Congress of 1963 we are engaged in living in ‘mutual responsibility and interdependence’ (Ephesians 2:13-22)”.

The bishops hailed from Sudan, Botswana, Malawi, Burundi, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Canada, the United States and England. They met at the end of February as a group of partner pairs and triads and discussed a range of issues including human sexuality, slavery and tackling poverty.

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Update: An ENS article appears here also.

An Anglican priest in British Columbia has earned a PhD for his research into the spirituality of snowboarding.

Rev. Neil Elliot of St. Andrews Anglican Church in Trail began his studies 10 years ago in England, pulling together a love of snowboarding, an interest in spirituality and a desire to understand the relationship between spirituality and religion.

It was the word “soulriding” that first captured his attention more than a dozen years ago, while he was living in England and snowboarding in the Alps in Europe. The term made him wonder if there was a spiritual dimension to carving a path down a mountain.

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The Vancouver-area Anglican diocese is trying to recoup more than $100,000 in court costs from a bitter dispute with conservative dissidents over four church properties.

The diocese, led by Bishop Michael Ingham, recently applied to the B.C. Appeal Court to retrieve a portion of the soaring court costs in a case rooted in a battle over same-sex blessings and how to interpret the Bible.

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A three-year dispute between the diocese of Ottawa and two historic churches that left the Anglican Church of Canada over the blessing of same-sex unions has ended. A negotiated settlement will divide assets between the two parties.

In 2008, the parishes of St. Alban the Martyr and St. George’s voted to join the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC), saying the Anglican Church of Canada “no longer adhered to the clear teaching of Scripture.”

As part of the agreement, the diocese will disestablish the parish of St. George’s and sell the property to ANiC. Once the sale is completed by March 1, the property will be renamed St. Peter & St. Paul’s Anglican Church.

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After months of negotiation, two Ottawa parishes of the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) ”“ St Alban’s the Martyr and St George’s ”“ have reached a negotiated settlement with the Anglican Church of Canada’s Diocese of Ottawa.

The settlement will be effective 1 July 2011 and will entail:
Ӣ both congregations changing their church names
”¢ the people of St George’s retaining their church building in the heart of Ottawa
”¢ the people of St Alban’s relinquishing their building
Ӣ a further undisclosed division of assets between the parishes and the diocese.

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After months of negotiations, the Diocese of Ottawa has reached an agreement with the leaders of two congregations that have left the Anglican Church of Canada. The agreement was approved by Diocesan Council on January 16 and recently by the vestries of the two congregations.

In 2008, clergy and congregations in the historic churches of St. Alban’s and St. George’s in downtown Ottawa voted to join the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) because of their opposition to the direction the Diocese and national church were taking, especially in regard to the blessing of same-sex civil unions.

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It was “quite clear” the Toronto College of Bishops “made a decision not to abide by the moratorium on same sex blessings. Further, the College has decided that a diocese is at liberty to move ahead unilaterally in this matter,” Dr. Murray Henderson of the Diocese of Toronto, vice-chairman of the Anglican Communion Alliance in Canada, told The Church of England Newspaper.

“I regard this as a grave action endangering the catholic faith and order of the church,” he said, noting the Toronto bishops were “acting on the disputed assumption that the Provinces are now merely a loose federation of independent churches.”

“I very much doubt that Canon Kearon, speaking as he does for the Archbishop of Canterbury, has reversed his policy of not allowing members of churches which move beyond the common faith and order of the Communion to serve on international commissions such as ARCIC. It is therefore puzzling and disheartening that a member of the Diocese of Toronto has been so appointed,” Dr. Henderson said.

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Edmonton’s Anglicans are being asked for prayers, not dollars, in the aftermath of an earthquake in New Zealand that damaged the Christchurch cathedral and left hundreds of people trapped under rubble.

The disaster area is the home of Victoria Matthews, former bishop of Edmonton’s diocese who is currently the archbishop of Christchurch. Matthews and her staff are safe and working in a “surreal” situation, supporting people affected by the tragedy, said Jane Alexander, who succeeded Matthews as Edmonton’s bishop.

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On the subject of same sex unions, the primate admitted to the parishioners that views on that issue are still polarized among Canadian Anglicans, but there is a growing “middle” that consists of people who are more tolerant.

“The middle has a greater capacity to embrace the differences we have,” he said.

He said the issue has sparked heated debates between the heads of the church, with some priests being open to inclusiveness while others view the openness of the church as a “slippery slope.”

“Not every priest is going to be comfortable doing this,” he said.

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Liturgy will include worship intended to engage the group in “celebrating the stories shared and giving thanks for [its] capacity to do good.”

Mission will include discussion in response to the question, “What may God be calling you to do or to say as you conclude the consultation?”

The Anglican provinces involved in the discussion are Canada, Tanzania, Kenya, Central Africa, South Africa, West Africa, England and the United States.

The consultation is sponsored by the Anglican Church of Canada, Fellowship of the Maple Leaf, The Episcopal Church in the U.S., Diocese of Dar es Salaam, the Anglican Diocese of Toronto Foundation, and Trinity Wall Street.

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Archbishop Fred Hiltz, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, has called on the federal government to address the current imbroglio over foreign aid funding with “transparency, courtesy and action.”

Archbishop Hiltz issued a statement following Minister of Cooperation Bev Oda’s recent admission that she had instructed the doctoring of a document in order to reject a funding application made by the ecumenical justice group, Kairos.

“The member churches and ecumenical organizations of Kairos represent an important sector of the Canadian population,” said the primate in a statement. “Since our faith commits us to stand in solidarity and hope with the poor and the oppressed, I issue this threefold call for transparency, courtesy and action by the Government of Canada.”

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