The Vatican announced Thursday that Bishop Kevin Vann, leader of the Fort Worth Catholic Diocese, has been named to a committee that will lay the groundwork for the incorporation of U.S. Anglican groups into the Roman Catholic Church.

But the announcement received a muted response from the group of churches led by Bishop Jack Iker, which split from the national Episcopal Church last year over issues including same-sex unions and gay bishops. That group calls itself the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, as does the group of Episcopal churches that remained with the national Episcopal Church.

“As you know, the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth has cordial relations with Bishop Vann and members of his diocese, but today’s announcement doesn’t have an impact on those ongoing talks about the sharing of resources and fellowship,” said Suzanne Gill, spokeswoman for the Iker-led churches. “And it certainly does not portend any formal linkage of the two dioceses.”

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Epiphany Celebration Anglican Church celebrated its new house of worship on Sunday by offering praise for the stately red brick building on Bay Street that once belonged to their Baptist friends.

“This is a joyous off-the-charts happy day,” the Rev. Dr. W.H. Volland said to the 255 people sitting in the pews. “The only reason we are in this place is because of the faithful, Godly obedient ministry of the folks of Bay Street Baptist Church. We offer a great deal of thanksgiving to them.”

Epiphany Celebration Anglican Church was formed on Jan. 6, 2007, the day of Epiphany on the liturgical calendar.

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The size of the congregation more than met expectations. Some in attendance were visitors whose homes are not in Abbotsford. The service ended at 8:45am. At this initial service of renewed diocesan worship at St. Matthew’s a post service coffee time in the parish hall had not been planned, but members of the ANiC congregation which use the St. Matthew’s church building had thoughtfully set-up tables for a post service coffee time and had made the kitchen available. 17 of those in attendance at the service did go for breakfast/coffee at a nearby restaurant. Organizing and on-site “Coffee Time” will happen in the near future.

The ANiC leaders representing their community were cordial and cooperative and did an outstanding job of setting up the Parish Hall for worship. The ACoC congregation were not required to replace chairs or re-organize the space. Arrangements for future Sundays may differ. The ANiC leadership agreed to the use of the piano to add a musical component to the worship and that may come to pass in future weeks.

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Charges the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) has abandoned the historic episcopate by receiving a bishop from the Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches (CEEC) without re-consecrating him are unfounded, the traditionalist province-in-waiting tells The Church of England Newspaper.

On July 31, American church commentator Robin Jordan charged the ACNA with having abandoned the historic episcopate when its Provincial Council of Bishops voted on June 9 to receive the Rt. Rev. Derek Jones as a bishop in good standing. Formed in 1995, the CEEC is an American Protestant denomination that has found a niche blending charismatic worship with liturgies drawn from the Book of Common Prayer, and is not normally numbered among the Anglican breakaway churches in the United States.

However, a review of Bishop Jones’ episcopal antecedents by the CEN finds that while a number of his consecrating bishops would not be recognized by Anglicans, his descent from a Brazilian bishop whose episcopal orders were recognized by Pope John XXIII places him within the apostolic tradition.

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St. Andrew was an apostle who brought many people to Christ in the New Testament, and according to Pastor Austin Goggans, that’s why the former Word & Table Anglican Fellowship has officially changed its name to St. Andrew’s Anglican Church.

“The biggest reason we changed the name is because we really look up to St. Andrew. We like the story and the examples St. Andrew showed in the Bible,” stated Goggans.

The new St. Andrew’s Anglican Church has also been accepted into the Anglican Diocese of the South.

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St. Andrew’s Anglican Church is the new name for the former Word and Table Anglican Fellowship in Rome. The Standing Committee of the Anglican Diocese of the South on Saturday approved the group’s request to affiliate with the diocese, which is part of the Anglican Church in North America.

“We are very pleased that the diocese’s newest mission church is in Northwest Georgia,” said diocesan bishop-elect Foley Beach. “We received many requests from the Rome area to assist with starting an orthodox Anglican church there, and have been delighted with the groundwork laid already by the new St. Andrew’s Anglican Church. The church is ideally located to serve Rome, Calhoun, Cedartown, Rockmart, Cartersville, and other nearby communities in Georgia and Alabama.”

Beach, the rector of Loganville’s Holy Cross Anglican Church, will be consecrated bishop on October 9 at Atlanta’s Church of the Apostles. A graduate of Sewanee’s School of Theology and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, he was formerly a priest in the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta. A delegation from the Rome church will participate in his consecration service.

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The Rev. Bill Gandenberger, assistant to Bishop John-David Schofield of the breakaway Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin, is leaving his post to become rector of Christ Church Vero Beach in Vero Beach, Fla.

Gandenberger’s final day in Fresno is Sunday.

He served as Schofield’s assistant for eight years, including in 2007 when Schofield led a secession movement out of the U.S. Episcopal Church over differences such as the ordination of a [non-celibate] gay bishop and the supreme authority of Scripture.

The breakaway diocese is now part of the Anglican Church in North America.

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A new faction of the Anglican Church is to open today in Victoria, a third offshoot in the fractured church.

St. Mark’s Traditional Anglican Church is to have its first service at 5 p.m. today at St. Ann’s Chapel on Humboldt Street, with its own church location to be announced within the next month.

Just how many people will show up at the service and be part of the congregation isn’t known. But with several local Anglican churches in the region closing and the rift in the church over the episcopal constitution, which was announced last October, there are Anglicans looking for a home, said Canon Stanley Sinclair of St. Mark’s.

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Hundreds of orthodox Anglicans were urged on Friday to uphold Scripture as the church in the West continues to abandon Christ’s path.

“The Western world has become afraid or is unwilling to acknowledge that there is right and wrong ”“ that there is good and evil,” Archbishop Nicholas Okoh, primate of the Church of Nigeria, told members of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America. “The West, Nations and Church, are disinheriting their Christian inheritance.”

Okoh was bringing greetings to CANA members who gathered in Herndon, Va., this week for their annual council meeting. CANA was established by the Church of Nigeria three years ago for those who were discontent with the liberal direction of The Episcopal Church ”“ the U.S. body of Anglicanism ”“ but who still wanted to remain tied with the global Anglican Communion.

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A letter to the parish about it is here.

It’s been three years since the Anglican Church of Nigeria “crossed borders” into the United States to establish a new home for conservatives who were unhappy with the liberal direction of the U.S. Episcopal Church.

And if the Nigerians didn’t step in, the global Anglican family would have lost a lot of people, said the new primate of the Church of Nigeria.

“We came because we love the Anglican church and we do not want the Anglican church to split,” Archbishop Nicholas Okoh told The Christian Post in an interview Tuesday. “That would’ve been the case if we didn’t come in.”

Though the Nigerian church, which is the largest regional body in the Anglican Communion with more than 18 million members, came to the U.S. with compassion, it was recently disciplined for violating a moratorium on cross-border intervention.

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What’s happened since the San Joaquin Diocese, under the leadership of Bishop John-David Schofield, became the first diocese in the country to leave the Episcopal Church in December 2007?

Four dioceses and more than 600 individual congregations in the United States have left the church over the interpretation of Scripture, including whether Jesus is the only way to salvation and the ordination of gay clergy.

The Episcopal Church has filed lawsuits against all parishes that left, claiming that the properties were set up as Episcopal and therefore belong to that denomination. The departing parishes and dioceses say they are still part of the international church — the worldwide Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church is a part — and, as such, should be able to retain their property.

The conflict has escalated internationally.

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For the Rev. Geoffrey Little and his wife, Blanca, it’s time to leave one spiritual home and build a new one.

Today will be the Littles’ last day at St. James Episcopal Church on East Grand Avenue, but they’ll continue to serve the Latino community in Fair Haven and Fair Haven Heights.

This week, they’ll open a new evangelical parish, worshiping in a banquet hall at 229 Grand Ave.

Blanca Little, who has run St. James Christian Academy, will open a new school in the fall, running it out of their home on Lenox Street.

“We’re going to open a new church in Fair Haven,” Geoff Little said. “It’s going to be called All Nations Christian Church and it’s going to be associated with the new Anglican Church of North America.”

That affiliation is important to the Littles, because the change is much more weighty than just changing addresses. For Geoff Little, it means resigning as a priest in the Episcopal Church.

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William Temple, the former Archbishop of Canterbury said: “The church exists mainly for those who are not its members.” All parishes should concentrate on attracting people who are not Christians or churchgoers. Whether or not they are living out of wedlock up with someone ”” of the opposite or same sex ”” is immaterial. The hope, though, would be that their perspective and lives gradually change as they become followers of Christ in his Church.

I would much rather attend a church with a high percentage of un-churched gays who are honestly seeking to live according to the Gospel than one with a high percentage of straight cradle-Anglicans who are not. And I don’t think that this would necessarily be unappealing to a gay or straight non-Christian. To say, “we believe in trying to live according to Biblical principles, even though we all may fail to varying degrees” has, I suspect, a more honest ring than the note of desperation in, “come to our church and do or believe what you want”.

St. Hilda’s has always attracted more than its fair share of single mothers, misfits, waifs, strays and assorted eccentrics ”” especially artists; the more the merrier. Many have passed through gaining sustenance along the way and some have made it their home. Sometimes it is chaotic: the pious have likened it to a circus. But unwelcoming? Never.

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A rift in the Anglican Church, whose long history in New Brunswick reaches back to the Loyalists, is fuelling the expansion of a new Anglican movement in the province.

The Anglican Network in Canada, a breakaway group from the Anglican Church of Canada, has established a church in Moncton and is setting up satellite congregations in Sussex, Miramichi and Saint John.

Rev. Don Hamilton, minister at the newly-established Christ the Redeemer Anglican Church, said in an interview Tuesday the network provides a safe haven for worshippers who are uncomfortable with the more worldly direction of modern religion.

“We can no longer follow the Anglican Church of Canada because of their increasingly unbiblical theology which we are witnessing in many ways – the moving away from the authority of scripture,” Hamilton said.

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The Provincial Council of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) unanimously recognized the Anglican Diocese of the South and the Diocese of the Great Lakes on June 9 at its meeting in Amesbury, Massachusetts. More than 1,500 Anglicans from 20 churches in four states (AL, GA, NC, TN) have joined together to form the new regional Diocese of the South. More than 1,500 communicants from 14 congregations in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana are uniting to form the regional Anglican Diocese of the Great Lakes.

Following the Provincial Council’s meeting, the ACNA’s College of Bishops elected the Rev. Dr. Foley Beach as the first bishop of the Diocese of the South. Bishop-elect Beach, who had been nominated by the diocese’s inaugural Synod, is the Rector of Holy Cross Anglican Church in Loganville, GA. He is expected to be consecrated this Fall. The College of Bishops also approved the election of Bishop Roger Ames as the first bishop of the Diocese of the Great Lakes. Bishop Ames, who previously served as a suffragan bishop for the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, is tentatively scheduled to be formally installed as the diocesan bishop this coming October.

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At this Provincial Council, we were inspired by a new generation of thirty-something preachers and teachers, including the Rev’s Stewart Ruch, Theresa Russell and Rusty Elisor, who reminded us that God is sovereign and in control (Eccl. 8:16-17), that at Pentecost the Holy Spirit birthed a missional church whose first step was to leave the buildings, get out into the streets, cross cultural boundaries, hang out with people, share the good news in their own language, and establish communities of incarnational discipleship marked by radical generosity and joy (Acts 2:42-47), and that we must always hide ourselves in no other foundation than Jesus Christ (I Cor. 3:11-15). The election of the Rev. Dr. Foley Beach as bishop of the new Anglican Diocese of the South – one of the youngest bishops to serve in the College of Bishops – heralds a new and rising generation of leaders within the ACNA. I can assure you that we will be well served by this new generation of shepherds, preachers and teachers who will both guard and proclaim the faith once delivered!

All of this would not be possible without the resurrection power of Jesus Christ at work in our midst. May it ever be so!

“…And the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings…” We all want to share in the power of Jesus’ resurrection. But how many of us want to share in the sufferings of Jesus Christ, including persecutions? Paul wants us to know that there is no knowing Jesus Christ, or the power of his resurrection, without sharing in the fellowship of his sufferings.

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Officials of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), which launched a year ago as an alternative to the Episcopal Church, are reporting significant progress in their efforts to share Eucharist with other churches and to do evangelism alongside messianic Jews.

In a report delivered at the ACNA’s annual meeting in Amesbury, Mass., on June 9, ecumenism task force chairman Ray Sutton listed a series of recent milestones that show how the ACNA is forging connections outside mainline Protestantism.

Dialogues with the Orthodox Church in America have reportedly knocked down one of the centuries-old barriers that have kept Anglican and Orthodox Christians from sharing Eucharist. The big concession: when sharing Eucharist, the ACNA would confess that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and not add the phrase and the Son, as Western Christians traditionally do in a formulation called the Filioque.

What’s more, the Lutheran Church”“Missouri Synod has lined up four meetings with ACNA representatives at seminaries later this year as the two denominations explore potential for Eucharistic sharing. The ACNA is also inviting 17 messianic Jewish groups to a September summit to explore “how we can do ministry together,” Sutton said.

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The Diocese of Quincy, a member of the Anglican Church in North America, has elected The Rt. Rev. Alberto Morales to be the 9th bishop of the diocese. Abbot Morales was elected on the 2nd ballot at a special session diocesan Synod which met Saturday at Grace Anglican Church in Galesburg, Illinois.

Bishop-elect Morales is the Abbot and spiritual leader of St. Benedicts Abbey, an ecumenical abbey in Bartonville, Illinois near Peoria. He was one of three candidates nominated for bishop by a special committee formed in 2009 to guide the selection process.

Abbot Morales founded St. Benedict’s Abbey in 1985 in Puerto Rico and moved the community to Illinois in 1996 after suffering religious persecution in Puerto Rico. Upon arrival in Illinois, the Abbot opened not only a monastery, but also a church for the people of the local community. Additionally, he started the local ministerial association along with other pastors of the Bartonville area and established St. Benedict’s Charities. He has been involved in helping the Church worldwide through his work in missions, spiritual direction, and conducting conferences and clergy retreats.

The other two nominees considered by the Synod were the Very Rev. Canon Edward den Blaauwen, Dean and Rector of Christ Church Cathedral (pro-tem) in Moline, Illinois, and Canon Liturgist of the diocese; and the Rev. Canon Michael Brooks, Rector at St. Peter’s Church in Canton, Illinois, and the administrator and Canon Missioner of the diocese.

When the Anglican Church in North America launched last year, founders were clear on what they didn’t want to be: the Episcopal Church.

But as the ACNA marks its first anniversary with a meeting here this week, members are finding that carving out a new identity requires a good dose of patience, and more money than they have on hand.

The ACNA knows what it wants to be: a church-planting, soul-saving province officially recognized by other churches and leaders in the 77-million-member Anglican Communion.

Leaders reported some progress on those goals this week, but fiscal hurdles remain.

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The jurisdictional approach to the integration of the Anglican Mission (a missionary outreach of Rwanda) into the Anglican Church in North America has been found to be “a bridge too far” and this meeting sees the petition of the Anglican Mission to be a Ministry Partner as a more appropriate approach to our life together in this season. At the same time this meeting heralds the ending of many important oversight relationships with foreign partners. Not least among these is the conclusion of Recife’s episcopal role. We are delighted that Bp. Robinson Cavalcanti is with us to mark this change. Here as elsewhere, oversight may end but our deep partnership in the gospel continues.

As archbishop I have articulated four areas that I believe need to become our distinctives:

1) that we know ourselves to be the beloved of Jesus;

2) that we become a people committed to personal holiness

3) that we understand our work as fore-runners of Jesus; and

4) that we are those who sacrifice for the sake of others.

Among other things, such distinctives would form us into a different people than we presently are. They would direct us in everything from our engagement with Islam to our embrace of the tithe. Seeing these distinctives is a great beginning. Embrace must follow.

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Fourteen members of All Saints Anglican Church were confirmed recently during a Sunday service at the church in Peachtree City.

The Right Reverend David Anderson of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America conducted the confirmation rite with Michael Fry, rector at All Saints, assisting.

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The Anglican Mission in America (AMiA) has pulled back from full membership in the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) and has asked to be affiliated with the breakaway province in formation as an ACNA “Ministry Partner.” The announcement weakens the third province movement in the United States and Canada, but will not likely prove to be fatal its supporters say.

On May 18 Archbishop Robert Duncan of the ACNA and Bishop Chuck Murphy of the AMiA, also known as the Anglican Mission, released separate statements saying the downgrading of the AMiA’s relationship with the ACNA would take affect following the group’s June bishops meeting.

Bishop Don Harvey of the Anglican Network in Canada, a diocese of the ACNA, stated that he did “not see this as good news, in fact it is a sad development in many ways.”

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A group of former Episcopalians who broke away from their denomination because of concern over blessings for homosexual couples, as well as other issues, have chosen a former Catholic church in this mill town on the New Hampshire border as regional headquarters for the more traditional Anglican denomination they are attempting to construct in the United States.

During the week of June 7, about 100 bishops and delegates from across North America will gather here at All Saints Anglican Church for a meeting of the year-old Anglican Church in North America, or ACNA. On the agenda: affirming Amesbury as seat of the New England diocese, home of the region’s bishop and site of the diocese’s cathedral.

Use of Amesbury, with a population of 12,500 and a location 40 miles from Boston, as a diocesan headquarters breaks with a centuries-old tradition of headquartering dioceses in major urban centers.

The cathedral will occupy the building formerly used by Sacred Heart Church, which for decades served as spiritual home to Roman Catholics, many of them French-Canadian mill workers and their descendants.

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Such is the fatigue over the Anglican-Episcopal splintering that two weekends ago, when the Episcopal diocese of Los Angeles consecrated the denomination’s second partnered gay bishop, the event didn’t make a blip on many evangelical news websites. Also largely unnoticed was the previous week’s press release from St. James Anglican Church in Newport Beach, California, stating that it would appeal the latest California Supreme Court ruling in its property dispute with the Episcopal Church. Christianity Today reported on St. James’s court case as recently as January, but for embattled congregations, months can feel like years.

St. James broke ties with the Episcopal Church and briefly joined the Anglican Diocese of Luwero, Uganda, in 2004 before becoming a member of the Anglican Church of North America last year. The court case is set to determine who gets its building and other assets.

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Orthodox Anglicans in North America are inviting priests in the Church of England to make a show of solidarity by taking part in a clergy swap.

The Anglican Church in North America was formed last year by Anglicans who broke away from the liberal Episcopal Church in the US. It is proposing the swap in the wake of last Saturday’s consecration by TEC of its first partnered lesbian bishop.

ACNA said the clergy swap would be an opportunity for Church of England parishes and clergy to express their solidarity and friendship with ACNA churches.

Participating clergy will be matched to churches with similar preaching and ministry styles and serve the pulpit for a period of three to four weeks in January and July or August next year.

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When the pastor at Mandarin’s All Souls Anglican Church tells his Jacksonville flock to take a hike around 10 a.m. Sunday, it’s OK this time.

They will be going home.

The Anglican church members will walk to a new sanctuary at the former First Coast Home Center at 4042 Hartley Road, a happier walk than many made July 15, 2007, when they left the church they had called home for 28 years due to a split from the Episcopal church.

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The Archbishop’s Cabinet has been working since February with the leadership of the Anglican Mission (theAM) in the Americas to clarify the Anglican Mission’s structural relationship within the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA).

This consideration came as a result of a January resolution by the Rwandan House of Bishops objecting to the dual membership of Rwanda’s missionary bishops in the North American College of Bishops.

The Anglican Mission, one of the founding entities of the Anglican Church in North America, was established as a North American missionary outreach of the Province of Rwanda following the consecrations of Bishop Chuck Murphy and John Rodgers in the year 2000.

The Constitution and Canons of the ACNA were written so that theAM might be practically integrated in the structure of the ACNA as a jurisdiction, while sustaining identity as a missionary outreach of Rwanda. The jurisdictional approach has led to a number of areas of confusion for bishops and congregations of the Anglican Mission. Consequently.

It has been agreed by the Executive Committee of the ACNA (presently also the Archbishop’s Cabinet, and formerly the lead bishops of Common Cause) that the Anglican Mission will petition the June meeting of the Provincial Council for status as a Ministry Partner, a status provided for in the Constitution and Canons of the North American Province and agreeable to the Province of Rwanda.

The Ministry Partner option will clarify the existing confusions. The Primatial Vicar of the Anglican Mission, appointed by the Archbishop of Rwanda, serves as chief liaison between the Province of Rwanda and the Anglican Church in North America. Representatives of the Anglican Mission continue to sit in the Provincial Council.

The ACNA and its Ministry Partners remain fervently committed to Anglican 1000 and church-planting. Local congregations continue to work together in ministry, and are free to transfer between the Anglican Mission in the Americas and the Anglican Church in North America (or vice versa) in consultation with the bishops concerned.

Clergy of theAM remain canonically resident in the Province of Rwanda and subject to their Norms, Prescripts, and Disciplines, but Ministry Partner status does provide canonically for clergy of theAM and the ACNA to minister in both ecclesiastical entities provided they are in good standing.

The most significant change brought by Ministry Partner status is that AM Bishops would no longer be regular members of the ACNA College of Bishops. Bishop Chuck Murphy, Primatial Vicar and Bishop Chairman of theAM made the following comment concerning the future of the Anglican Mission as a Ministry Partner within the Anglican Church in North America:

“We are delighted that the Anglican Church in North America is now successfully up and running. As one of the founding members of the ACNA, we in the Anglican Mission have invested significant time and energy into its formation and we remain strongly supportive of the Province and Archbishop Duncan’s leadership of this important new work.” Archbishop Duncan noted,

“The vision of a biblical, missionary and united Anglicanism in North America remains the vision of every North American Anglican. Jurisdictional integration also remains a future hope as Rwandan canons do provide for the transfer of the Anglican Mission to the Anglican Church in North America when the time seems right.”

Update: R.W. Foster has comments on this here.

The theological differences that precipitated the exodus of Sellers’ congregation and others from the Episcopal Church are the root of the latest strife to affect the denomination. This new conflict, though, which has managed to unite groups that abandoned the denomination as far back as 1873, could mean serious trouble for the Episcopal Church, said Bill Leonard, dean and professor of church history at Wake Forest University Divinity School.

“It is very fascinating historically that the Anglican Communion in this country has decided to split over issues of sexuality, when they resisted schism over slavery, temperance, and fundamentalism and liberalism in the 1920s, those controversies that divided so many Protestant groups in North America,” he said.

“It took a long time, but now that it has started, it is moving along with a vengeance.”

In Pinellas, the squabble between the two churches continues over matters such as ownership of an early learning center and a bingo license. The Episcopal congregation wants its website and phone number back.

“It’s like a family breaking up,” said Jim DeLa, spokesman for the Episcopal Diocese.

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