The Canadian church’s top governing body decided last June that blessing same-sex marriages does not violate basic church doctrine, prompting anger among conservative congregations.

Canada’s bishops have decided to continue a moratorium on same-sex marriages, however. Some local parishes and dioceses are blessing the unions anyway.

Meanwhile, the dissenting churches are being asked to hand over the keys to their buildings or face legal action to have them removed from the properties.

“If they don’t turn in the keys, we are planning to go and physically try to take possession of the parishes by showing up and asking them for the keys,” the Rev. Richard Jones, an official in the Diocese of Niagara, told the Toronto Star.

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Nationally, most Churches that leave the ACC will align themselves with a just-created parallel governing structure called the Anglican Network in Canada (ANIC). Globally, they will position themselves under the leadership of more traditional Anglican leaders from other continents. But they remain members of the world-wide Anglican Communion and, in fact, are only strengthening that tie by leaving a national Church that is operating outside of Anglican authority.

There is clearly a deep doctrinal and theological split in the Anglican Church. Open debates always have a place, but something is seriously wrong when Church leaders have no qualms about defying Church doctrine (the central tenets and core beliefs of the faith), yet declare a schism and cry “disobedience” when the man-created lines of Church leadership are threatened.

The real story here isn’t that a schism is now occurring in one of Canada’s most prominent Churches. What should be of most concern to those who sit in the pews is that the leadership of the Anglican Church in Canada has abandoned its traditional roles of defending the faith and the authority of Scriptures. It has refused to act even as its own leaders repeatedly defied Church doctrine and authority. Perhaps that’s why membership in Canada’s Anglican Church has declined 30% over the past 40 years, while membership at conservative Churches like St. John’s is thriving.

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In the past week, seven Canadian parishes in five dioceses have split from the national church and have put themselves under the authority of Archbishop Gregory Venables, head of the Province of the Southern Cone, which encompasses parts of South America. This week, the Diocese of Niagara in Ontario said it will replace the clergy at its two churches that voted to separate and went on to say that breakaway parishes “are no longer considered officially Anglican.” Two ministers in British Columbia have also been suspended.

ArchbishopVenables, speaking from Buenos Aires, said he is not happy about the potential for a global division, or what is happening in Canada, but he believes the worldwide Anglican Church has been on this course for more than 100 years, and he is becoming less hopeful for a resolution.

“It ends up you have two versions of Christianity,” he said. “There are two positions that have moved apart over the last century: the Bible-based orthodox Christianity that goes back to the early years of the Church and a post-modern Christianity that believes everybody can find their own truth. And those two things cannot work together.”

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Rev. Andrew Hewlett, the parish’s assistant priest, said the people there don’t agree with the theological course chosen by the Anglican Church of Canada.

The people of the congregation “who built the church, paid for it, banged in nails and painted the walls” should have an opportunity to decide on their future, said Hewlett. The same-sex marriage issue “is the presenting issue that gets a lot of press but I think there are deeper issues to do with theology, how we understand Christ, how we understand the Gospel and how we view scripture,” Hewlett said.

Bryant-Scott said the breakaway group “has done something illegal and inappropriate.” A parish leaving the church “simply is not possible,” he said.

“Individuals join churches; individuals can leave churches. An entity, a parish, cannot leave the diocese.”

People can form another church on their own, said Bryant-Scott, but can’t take the organization with them.

Discipline proceedings have begun against the two clergy involved, Hewlett and the Rector Sharon Hayton. Both have been “inhibited,” meaning they cannot participate in ordained ministry.

“I’m hoping to meet with them as soon as I can,” Bryant-Scott said.

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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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Eighty-six per cent of participating parishioners at Metchosin’s St. Mary the Incarnation Anglican Church voted yesterday to separate from their national body over the issue of same-sex marriage, part of a pattern that has developed across the country.

Meanwhile, St. Matthew’s Anglican parish in Abbotsford became the second Lower Mainland congregation in a week to split from the Vancouver-area diocese overseen by Bishop Michael Ingham.

The Abbotsford parish followed in the footsteps of Vancouver’s St. John’s Shaughnessy — the largest Anglican congregation in Canada — which voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to break with Ingham, primarily over the issue of same-sex blessings.

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Seven Anglican congregations voted this weekend to accept the episcopal oversight of Bishop Donald Harvey, Moderator of the Anglican Network in Canada, under the Primatial authority of Archbishop Gregory Venables and the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone. Most churches accepted this option with decisive majorities.

What this means is that these congregations are requesting spiritual care from and will come under the authority of Bishop Harvey and Archbishop Venables, rather than their former Anglican Church in Canada diocese and bishop who are walking away from established Christian teaching and globally recognized Anglican doctrine.

Today, six churches voted to accept Bishop Harvey’s spiritual care….

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At least five more Anglican churches — three in British Columbia and two in Ontario — are likely to separate from the national Church over the divisive issue of same-sex blessings by the end of the month. Another four will also vote on similar motions this month.

They will be following St. John’s, the country’s largest Anglican parish, which voted this week to leave the Anglican Church of Canada. The Vancouver parish chose to put itself under the authority of conservative Gregory Venables, the Archbishop of the Southern Cone, which encompasses parts of South America.

Rev. Andrew Hewlett, minister at St. Mary of the Incarnation near Victoria, which will vote tomorrow, received a letter from the bishop of his diocese, James Cowan, that said anyone “found to be acquiescing in or to be actively promoting such a separation” could face “immediate termination of employment without notice or severance.”

He said the vote will go ahead despite the threat because it is the will of his congregation that it happen. He expects the motion to leave the Canadian Church will pass.

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On its website the Diocese reports considerable shrinkage: “In the history of our diocese, 124 parishes have been established, and 47 have been merged or closed.”

[Leslie] Bentley said, “There can be no good reason for the Diocese to take over the parish to protect [theologically] liberal members as there are six liberal parishes within a ten-minute drive of St John’s, which leads me to believe that the Diocese is only interested in protecting St John’s building and property. They either want the money or they just want us out.”

No diocesan money was used to start the parish; the Diocese only gave permission for it to be founded. The church was independently incorporated in the Diocese in 1932. This year the church exceeded its budget by $28,000. Bentley claimed that not only has Bishop Ingham “abandoned” St John’s for the past six years, but the Anglican Church of Canada has been “completely mute” as well. She said if Bishop Ingham locks them out “We’ll meet on the grass.”

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Members of an Anglican church in Abbotsford are expected to become the second local congregation in a week to split from Vancouver-area Bishop Michael Ingham over his support for same-sex blessings.

And two more Anglican churches — St. Matthias/ St. Luke and The Church of the Good Shepherd — in Vancouver are poised to fill out similar ballots later this month as orthodox followers openly challenge Ingham’s liberal vision for the church.

“We are prepared to act on our faith,” said Rev. Trevor Walters of St. Matthew’s Anglican parish in Abbotsford, whose members will cast their votes Sunday.

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Moments before they decided to align with an orthodox Anglican bishop in South America, members of Vancouver’s St. John’s Shaughnessy Church, one of the largest Anglican congregations in Canada, attended a Bible study session.

In the latest development in a controversy that has arisen within several different religions, the conservative Anglican congregation in Vancouver voted on Wednesday evening to request episcopal oversight by Archbishop Gregory Venables of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone. If accepted, the Vancouver parish would, in effect, be cut off from the Anglican Church in Canada.

The rector, Rev. David Short, talked a lot about church unity that day, Lesley Bentley, a spokeswoman for St. John’s Shaughnessy, said yesterday in an interview.

Mr. Short spoke about the importance of church unity with Scripture and of a common understanding of Scripture, particularly around core values, Ms. Bentley recalled. “It was about the supremacy of the Bible and the uniqueness of Jesus Christ.”

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The largest Anglican congregation in the country has voted overwhelmingly to leave the Canadian Church and put itself under the authority of a parallel conservative Anglican movement — a move that may help accelerate a schism and open the way for a nasty legal battle over Church property.

St. John’s, which has more than 2,000 members in the affluent Vancouver neighbourhood of Shaughnessy, has been at odds with the Diocese of New Westminster, which lets its churches perform same-sex blessings, since 2002.

The congregation has withheld financial support from the diocese for the past six years as a protest, but now has taken the radical step of breaking off all together.

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Members of what is described as the largest congregation in the Anglican Church of Canada voted strongly Wednesday to split with Vancouver-area Bishop Michael Ingham over his support for same-sex blessings.

“It means that the community speaks with one mind,” said St. John’s Shaughnessy Anglican Church spokeswoman Lesley Bentley, after a preliminary count showed that out of 495 ballots cast, only 11 opposed the split and nine abstained.

“What it is is very uniting.”

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The fate of what is described as the largest congregation in the Anglican Church of Canada hangs in the balance tonight.

Members of St. John’s Shaughnessy Anglican Church, a neo-Gothic landmark in the heart of the city’s wealthiest neighbourhood, are gathering for an expected vote on breaking with Vancouver-area Bishop Michael Ingham over the issue of same-sex blessings and trying to take the church property with them.

Ingham has warned St. John’s Shaughnessy that what it is considering is “schismatic.” If members of the large parish at the corner of Granville and Nanton try operating under the authority of a South American Anglican bishop or anyone else, Ingham said, they will not be legally able to hold onto the church property.

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The neighbouring Bishop of British Columbia, James Cowan, is warning priests and congregational officials in his diocese””which covers Vancouver Island””not to try to take parishes out of his diocese.

“If a person is employed by the Diocese or parish and is found to be acquiescing in or to be actively promoting such separation, this is a ground for immediate termination of employment without notice or severance,” he wrote to all his clergy, churchwardens, and members of parish councils.

The letter was not directed to specific clergy or congregations, and no Diocese of BC parishes are currently listed as belonging to the Anglican Network in Canada, the group that includes congregations that have members actively seeking to come under the jurisdiction of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone in South America.

However, according to Bishop Cowan, “persistant rumours have come to my attention” that people are working to separate from the Anglican Church of Canada and join the South American Church ”“ a move condemned by church leaders in Canada and strongly discouraged by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.

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The Bishop stressed that Anglicans belong to a diocesan Church. Dioceses establish parishes””and not the other way round. There is no legal precedent which would allow members of a congregation who choose to leave the diocese and the Anglican Church of Canada to take parish lands, building, or other assets with them.

In November, the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone indicated it would accept as members Canadian Anglican churches that are in theological dispute with their bishops and dioceses.

A group of parishes forming the “Anglican Network in Canada” have indicated that if their membership agrees, they would attempt to leave the diocese and join this foreign province, based in South America. Four parishes in the Diocese of New Westminster are listed on the Anglican Network’s website as member parishes.

Bishop Ingham told the group that met at Christ Church Cathedral, where the taping took place, that there is sincere disagreement as to what the few passages in the Bible say about such things as homosexuality.

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About 14 years ago, his health declining due to HIV, Ron Chaplin decided to return after many years of absence to St. John the Evangelist, a downtown church located on Ottawa’s busy Elgin Street.

“My expectations were modest. I was looking for a place to die ”¦ I was seeking a place from which to be buried,” recalled Mr. Chaplin. “What I found was not what I expected. What I found at St. John’s was new life.”

Among those who welcomed him was the rector, Canon Garth Bulmer, by then two years into the job. “Garth Bulmer encouraged me, and indeed all the laity, to exercise (our) ministry. He was our tireless cheerleader,” said Mr. Chaplin. “We were encouraged and cajoled at all times to ask questions, to seek new perspectives, to not be afraid to challenge injustice or unfairness, and at all times to engage honestly and openly with each other in an attitude of prayer and mutual respect. Under his guidance, I found new roles to play in the community, and new purpose in life.”

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Condemning the federal government’s “serious departure” from Canada’s long-standing clemency policy, Canada’s top Anglican cleric has urged Prime Minister Stephen Harper to scrap the Conservatives’ new hands-off policy toward Canadians facing execution in some countries.

In a Jan. 29 letter to Harper, made public by the Anglican Church of Canada, Archbishop Fred Hiltz expresses “grave concern” over the government’s recent decision “to accept the imposition of the death penalty” in certain cases, such as the pending lethal injection of Alberta-born killer Ronald Smith in Montana.

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The congregation of St. John the Evangelist Church here remains in the dark about the future of its rector, more than six months since he was disciplined by the Anglican Church.

Rev. Michael Bury’s licence to perform marriages was suspended after he married a same-sex couple last August.

While details of the offending ceremony haven’t been released by the church and local church officials declined to comment on the issue, Bury was disciplined by the diocese of Ontario for marrying the same-sex couple.

This occurred after diocesan Bishop George Bruce warned all clergy that disciplinary action would be taken for any clergy member conducting same-sex blessings or same-sex weddings.

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Bishop Cyrus Pitman issued the ad clerum in part as a response to the departure of his predecessor, Donald Harvey, who left the Anglican Church of Canada several years ago over the issue of blessing same-sex unions and is now affiliated with the more conservative Anglican Network in Canada.

“I value people’s individual conscience, and our church has always accommodated a diversity of opinion,” Bishop Pitman writes in the letter to 37 parishes, dated Dec. 18.

“However, I would expect any clergy involved in the network and working to the establishment of a parallel jurisdiction to the Anglican Church of Canada would do the honourable thing and resign their positions, relinquishing their licences to exercise ordained ministry in this church as their leader has done.”

Bishop Pitman was unavailable for comment, but diocese executive Ven. Geoff Peddle spoke on his behalf, saying the bishop felt it was necessary to bring all 100 clergy together after some of them requested the meeting.

“Some people consider it somewhat extraordinary that the bishop would do this, however, the actions of Donald Harvey have been quite extraordinary themselves,” Archdeacon Peddle said.

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The head of the Anglican church has made it clear he is powerless to stop conservative Canadian and U.S. congregations, upset with their national churches’ positions on homosexuality, from leaving and affiliating with orthodox branches in Latin America and Africa.

It was a frank admission by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, leader of the world’s 77 million Anglicans, of the limits of his power, even though he is opposed to cross-border ecclesiastical moves.

Williams was responding to a plea by the liberal leadership of the Anglican Church of Canada to address the fact that the orthodox Anglican Church of the Southern Cone of the Americas had started in November giving oversight to some congregations — or “intervening” in Canada.

“I have no canonical authority to prevent these things, but I would simply repeat what was said in my advent letter (in December), to the effect that I cannot support or sanction such actions,” Williams wrote the Canadian archbishops.

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The Canadian Anglican church appears to be inching closer to a general approval of blessing committed same-sex unions.

As a result, two retired Canadian bishops – Don Harvey of Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador and Malcolm Harding of Brandon, Man., have quit the Canadian church to become bishops in the tiny South American Anglican church. A small number of priests have indicated they will follow.

Yesterday, Bishop Harvey’s successor, Right Reverend Cyrus Pitman, exacted a loyalty pledge of sorts from his diocesan priests gathered in St. John’s Anglican Cathedral. Bishop Pitman had them repeat their priestly vows and issued them with new licences signed by himself rather than Bishop Harvey.

There was nothing unusual about the renewal of priestly vows – most Anglican dioceses do them annually – but they’re usually done just before Easter.

A senior Anglican cleric, speaking on background, explained that Bishop Harvey likely had “some following” among priests in the diocese.

But the diocese’s executive archdeacon, Geoff Peddle, told CBC that “not a single priest has left our church.”

Bishop Harvey characterized the tone of his successor’s action as “devastating.”

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Archbishop Fred Hiltz, the primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, has urged divinity students from Trinity and Wycliffe Colleges in Toronto not to be discouraged by wrangling in the Anglican Communion over the issue of sexuality, saying he remains optimistic about the fate of Anglicanism.

“Be strong and of good courage,” Archbishop Hiltz told about 60 students, most of them candidates for ordination to the Anglican priesthood. “You’re stepping into a church that’s facing lots of challenges but also grand possibilities.

“Our church is often described as being weary and worn ”¦ as beleaguered. I choose to describe and think about our church as our beloved church.”

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Toronto’s Church of the Holy Trinity has presented a direct challenge to the leaders of the Anglican Church of Canada by voting to hold weddings for same sex couples.

Their statement says, “Holy Trinity will continue to exercise its conscience and bless same-sex unions and marry same-sex couples.”

While Holy Trinity has been conducting blessing ceremonies for some time, Rev. Jim Ferry, a preist at Holy Trinity clarified, “We also intend, when the opportunity arises, to take the next step, which is a (same-sex) marriage ceremony.”

Ferry also claimed that numerous other parishes across Canada are “quietly” conducting same-sex blessings. “We’re not the only ones,” he said yesterday, according to the Ottawa Citizen. “There are other parishes across the country who have been quietly going ahead and doing same-sex blessings. They’re in the major urban centres, wherever there’s a significant population of gay and lesbian people.”

Holy Trinity parish, in downtown Toronto, is notorious for its heedless disregard for fundamental Anglican precepts, and is known for its pro-homosexual and anti-Catholic activism. During Toronto World Youth Day in 2002, Holy Trinity hosted an anti-Catholic event that included a speaker who advocated violent protest against churches.

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Anglican Bishop John Chapman says he will likely decide within seven months or so whether to allow blessings of same-sex unions in the Ottawa diocese.

He is to discuss the issue with other clergy in July at the Lambeth conference, an international meeting of Anglicans that happens once a decade.

“I’m really hoping that, when we have an opportunity to look each other in the eye that, somehow we will find a way through so that more traditional-minded dioceses can live together with a more liberal-minded diocese under the same roof,” he said.

“I hope I am not being naively optimistic, but I do put a lot of stock in what can happen when people sit down and start to reason together.”

Then, Bishop Chapman said, the three Ontario bishops whose dioceses have asked for same-sex blessings ought to be able to come to some agreement on how to proceed “in a way that will be compatible with the Anglican Church of Canada as well.”

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He’s been called the diocesan hit man. As a joke, of course. Not a great joke. People with the skills of Simon Bell have become necessary in Canada’s major Christian churches.

He determines which congregations can survive, and why, and which ones have slid so far into the abyss of decline that they need to be put out of their misery. His title is congregational development consultant with the Anglican Diocese of Toronto, the largest Anglican jurisdiction in Canada. Churches call him in when they realize they’re in trouble.

He acquired the hit-man sobriquet after his involvement in the protracted – it’s still going on – and unpopular closing of one of Toronto’s most historic and architecturally significant Anglican churches, St. Stephen-in-the-Field at College Street and Bellevue Avenue.

This is what is going on as Canada completes its emergence from Christendom, the cultural hegemony of Christianity that had defined the country since the onset of European settlement.

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Notwithstanding the fact that the 2007 General Synod defeated a resolution, “affirming the authority and jurisdiction of a diocesan synod with the concurrence of its bishop and in a manner respecting the conscience of the incumbent and the will of the parish to authorize the blessing of same sex unions,” three dioceses — Ottawa, Montreal and Niagara — have since voted by strong majorities to request their bishop to consider authorizing public rites for the blessing of same-sex couples who are civilly married.

I believe these resolutions present an opportunity to test the mind of the local church and the results speak of a pastoral need that cannot be ignored. In each case the bishop has indicated that he will consult widely before making a decision.

General Synod 2007 also concurred by resolution with the opinion of the St. Michael Report that the blessing of same-sex unions should not be a communion-breaking issue. Nonetheless some people feel compelled to leave our church over this issue. Their decision is regrettable given the fact that the bishops have made adequate and appropriate provision for the pastoral care and episcopal support of all members of our church including those who find themselves in conscientious disagreement with the view of their bishop and synod. These provisions are contained in a document known as Shared Episcopal Ministry approved by the House of Bishops in November 2004 and commended in September 2006 by an international Panel of Reference appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

In light of these provisions, as well as of ancient canons of the church, statements of successive Lambeth Conferences, the Lambeth Commission on Communion (the Windsor Report), and the 2005 and 2007 communiqués from the Primates, we believe that recent interventions by another province in the internal life of our church are unnecessary and inappropriate.

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Rt. Rev. Percy Coffin says there are churches in his region that are in financial hardship, but none are in danger of closing.

The bishop of the Anglican diocese of western Newfoundland said he’s not blind to the monetary suffering of parishes in the diocese, but there aren’t any churches that are in the last-resort area of closure.

“Closing a church is an extreme measure,” Bishop Coffin said. “There are a few parishes that are financially stressed.

“That concern would be addressed in a context other than closure because there are various ways of resolving financial difficulties.”

He said the primary task of the diocese is to provide ministry and threatening to close a church if they don’t pay up is not the way the business of the diocese is done. He said there are a number of solutions for financial stress and closing a church is the last resort.

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