The Virginia Supreme Court has set oral arguments in the appeals brought by ECUSA and the Diocese of Virginia in the cases involving eleven ACNA parishes in the Anglican District of Virginia. I have previously discussed what took place at the hearings below in this post, and in this one; they may serve as background to understanding the issues involved. In this post, I would like to sketch out the issues as ECUSA and the Diocese have presented them in their briefs. In a subsequent post, I will go over the arguments of the ACNA parishes in opposition.

There is no way, of course, to predict what the Virginia Supreme Court will find significant in the briefs and arguments presented to it. Moreover, I am not licensed to practice in Virginia; someone who is may pick up on points of Virginia law and procedure that I have missed. Thus do not use these posts as a basis to expect any particular outcome. Instead, to the extent they assist you in making your way through the forest of contentions and counter-contentions, and in evaluating their relative strengths and weaknesses, they will have served their purpose.

At issue in these appeals is the interpretation and application of this Virginia statute, first adopted in 1867…

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Our Bishop will be The Rt. Rev’d John Guernsey. Bishop Guernsey is the long-time Rector of All Saints Church in Dale City, Virginia and will be well known to several within St. Andrew’s. I have known +John for over 20 years, dating back to my time at Virginia Seminary. You will discover that he shares many of the priorities that we have as a parish; from our commitment to missions (the Bishop is the Chairman of the Board for SOMA ”“ a well known mission agency) to our passion to see every member equipped for ministry with both Word and Spirit. I have made arrangements for Bishop Guernsey to visit and preach at the Wednesday night service, 28 April 2010, followed by a time of healing prayer led by the Bishop. Please make plans to attend.

Lastly, the departure of this parish from the Diocese of South Carolina was not hastily made nor was it an easy decision. Indeed, this struggle has extended well beyond the past decade costing this parish one well-beloved Rector. Any sense of sadness over our separation is tempered by our joyful sense of the Lord’s forward-looking call upon our lives; by our common love for our Lord and by the common knowledge that our difficulty lay with the spiritual headship of the National Church, of which the Diocese of South Carolina remains, and intends to remain, a part, and not with the Bishop of South Carolina. And so, I must say “thank you” to Bishop Lawrence. From the day I met +Mark in the candidacy process I have spoken with him often about St. Andrew’s costly efforts to remain faithful to the gospel in the midst of the Episcopal Church’s increasing abandonment of the faith as revealed through Scripture and Tradition. These conversations have continued throughout +Mark’s episcopacy and have grown to include the Vestry of St. Andrew’s as well as the Standing Committee of the Diocese of South Carolina. I have found in Bishop Lawrence a friend and co-laborer in the ministry of the Gospel. We share a mutual desire to maintain our fraternal relationship and have committed to one another that St. Andrew’s and the Diocese of South Carolina will continue to partner in Gospel ministry as opportunity and circumstance permit. Please remember to pray for the Diocese of South Carolina as we desire nothing less than God’s best for them.

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Members and clergy of various local Episcopal and Anglican congregations say they are doing just fine, some of them boasting church growth in numbers of congregants, quality of fellowship and worship, or both, despite ongoing litigation over church property to which both the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin lay claim.

The rector of All Saints Anglican Church, the Rev. John Riebe, said pending litigation does not worry him or his flock of 140 who attend two Sunday services. “The church is the people. It’s not the building,” he said. “We honestly believe that this is the Lord’s property and we are stewards of the Lord’s property. If we’re asked to give it up to find other property to work with, then that’s what we’ll do.”

He said only about five people left All Saints when “the separation” took place in December of 2008. “We have continued to see slow but steady growth. We have not had any decline as a result” of the split, he said.

“It’s a very thriving, energetic, Episcopal parish,” Grace Congregation member Mary Webb said about her church during the social hour following a recent Lenten service attended by about 65 worshippers. “We are very much alive and well. There are legal battles over property, but we move on.”

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Like more than 100 churches nationwide, Christ Church broke with TEC over its well-documented liberalized faith (“Other Abrahamic faiths have access to God the Father without consciously going through Jesus,” presiding bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has said). The church’s vestry voted unanimously to disaffiliate over “departure from doctrine” and to place the church under the Anglican Province of Uganda. The congregation approved, with 87 percent voting in favor out of over 300 ballots cast.

Division “happened over time,” rector Marc Robertson told me, and 30-40 disaffected members set up a congregation downriver calling itself “Christ Church Episcopal.” Last May TEC filed legal action against Robertson and the vestry, seeking to acquire the property on Johnson Square in Savannah’s historic district. TEC has filed similar actions against churches in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Texas. This case turns on state trust laws and laws of incorporation, and is complex given that Christ Church predates the existence of the state of Georgia. TEC asserts that church property should be subject to denominational “discipline,” which Christ Church forfeited when it quit the denomination, it says.

Funny things happen when a church takes a stand for the gospel. Sunday attendance at Christ Church is up and it accepted 28 new families””a record””for membership this past year. “We have a corporate sense of galvanization,” said Robertson, “and are doing well spiritually. Our biblical literacy has increased because we are driven back to understanding why we believe what we believe.”

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Like more than 100 churches nationwide, Christ Church broke with TEC over its well-documented liberalized faith (“Other Abrahamic faiths have access to God the Father without consciously going through Jesus,” presiding bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has said). The church’s vestry voted unanimously to disaffiliate over “departure from doctrine” and to place the church under the Anglican Province of Uganda. The congregation approved, with 87 percent voting in favor out of over 300 ballots cast.

Division “happened over time,” rector Marc Robertson told me, and 30-40 disaffected members set up a congregation downriver calling itself “Christ Church Episcopal.” Last May TEC filed legal action against Robertson and the vestry, seeking to acquire the property on Johnson Square in Savannah’s historic district. TEC has filed similar actions against churches in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Texas. This case turns on state trust laws and laws of incorporation, and is complex given that Christ Church predates the existence of the state of Georgia. TEC asserts that church property should be subject to denominational “discipline,” which Christ Church forfeited when it quit the denomination, it says.

Funny things happen when a church takes a stand for the gospel. Sunday attendance at Christ Church is up and it accepted 28 new families””a record””for membership this past year. “We have a corporate sense of galvanization,” said Robertson, “and are doing well spiritually. Our biblical literacy has increased because we are driven back to understanding why we believe what we believe.”

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MT: I’d like to talk to you a little about Grace Episcopal in particular. Can you give me an overview of the place of Grace Episcopal in the Anglican Communion? How does the relationship between the members of the Communion work in practicality?

TV: The Anglican Communion, coming as it did out of the Reformation, is what I call ecclesiastically schizophrenic. Basically we’re Catholic (just not Roman Catholic) but, with our Reformed fear of papal authority we’re very decentralized. Grace is a mission (meaning the Bishop is the rector, head, of the parish) in the Diocese of San Joaquin which in turn is part of the Episcopal Church. Each national church (e.g., Canada, Nigeria) is autonomous, within a loose confederation headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury who, however, has more of a bully-pulpit authority rather than a legislative one.

MT: What are the primary doctrines of Grace Episcopal? How are these connected to the broader Episcopal Church? Are there differences or are the doctrines consistent?

TV: Grace was founded as, and is, a welcoming and inclusive parish, which means, especially in Bako, that we fully welcome LGBT folk. We were also founded as an outreach parish, reaching out in love to others rather than focusing overmuch on ourselves. The two main tenets that separate Grace and the Episcopal Church (TEC) from the schismatics is that we embrace our LGBT sisters and brothers and we ordain women.

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It is Mr. [Simon] Sarmiento who misled the members of General Synod, not Ms. Ashworth. Notice first of all that he evaded Ms. Ashworth’s point. She asserted that the Church’s lawsuits named individual vestry members as defendants, and he responded that such defendants are “generally covered” by insurance. (That has not been my experience in any church litigation with which I have been associated; only the largest Episcopal parishes can afford to budget for such insurance.) He does not deny that individual vestry members are named, but claims that no damages are sought against them.

This is, as I say, highly misleading. Any individual named in a lawsuit can be held liable for costs if he or she ends up losing; such costs in protracted cases (such as the Dennis Canon ones usually are) can run into the many thousands of dollars. And for an example where ECUSA sought $500,000 plus additional damages from a church’s law firm, one needs look no further than this earlier post. (The pseudo-diocese of San Joaquin has carried on the tradition by naming the individual vestry members and rector of St. John’s Anglican parish in Turlock as defendants in its latest lawsuit. The plaintiff Bishop Lamb made a point of telling his flock that it “is not a suit against any individuals.” But the story about the suit linked earlier has a copy of the complaint which you may download, and see for yourself that the defendants named [scroll down to page 5] include the rector and nine vestry members, who are sued “as individuals”. Those individuals still need to pay an attorney to defend them [no insurance is applicable], and there is always, as I say, individual liability for court costs if they lose [see paragraph H. of the prayer for relief on page 24 of the complaint (page 28 of the document)].)

But now we have a different kind of response to ECUSA’s bullying tactics — one might even say that ECUSA has sued one vestry member too many. For one such vestry member whom the Church named in a lawsuit to recover a parish’s property in San Angelo, Texas is also an attorney: his name is Mark Brown. And in his capacity as an attorney, Mark Brown has filed an amicus brief in the writ proceeding currently pending before the Court of Appeals in Fort Worth.

It is a brilliant brief, and may do far more damage to ECUSA’s claims in that case than ECUSA has been able to do to Mr. Brown.

Read it carefully and make sure to download and read the whole document by Mark Brown also.

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While the CoE debate was in some ways a proxy fight between TEC and AC-NA, conservatives still within the denomination received a jarring message when Lawrence announced an emergency postponement of the diocese’s annual convention, stating that “the Presiding Bishop’s Chancellor, if not the Presiding Bishop herself, is seeking to build a case against the Ecclesiastical Authorities of the Diocese (Bishop and Standing Committee) and some of our parishes.”

According to Lawrence, the Chancellor of the diocese was informed in December of 2009 that a local attorney had been retained by the Chancellor of the Presiding Bishop to represent The Episcopal Church in some “local matters.”

The following month, a series of letters requesting documents from diocesan records were sent to the South Carolina chancellor. Requested records included lists of all persons ordained since October 24, 2009, all parish bylaws and amendments since 2006; all Standing Committee Minutes since the episcopacy of former South Carolina Bishop Salmon; parish charters, parish founding documents, parish deeds, parish mortgages, documents evidencing parish participation in diocesan programs and others.

Lawrence indicated the collection of information by the Presiding Bishop’s office was unprecedented, and vigorously asserted that he was the only bishop with canonical jurisdiction. In the Episcopal Church, the Presiding Bishop acts as a “first among equals,” not unlike the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Outside of actions by the General Convention, she does not hold authority over diocesan bishops as an Archbishop would.

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Via email:

The Standing Committee of the Diocese of Quincy, Peoria, Illinois, has announced that a special synod to elect its next bishop will meet on Saturday, June 12, 2010, at Grace Anglican Church in Galesburg, IL. Registration will begin at 9:00 AM, with the election to begin at 10:00 AM. Per diocesan canons, an official slate of nominees will be put forth, followed by nominations from the floor.

On May 8th at 10:00 AM, the Search Committee charged with bringing nominations will host public visits with the nominees who have been selected. This event will also be hosted at Grace Anglican Church in Galesburg. On that day, members of the diocese will have an opportunity to meet the nominees in separate sessions and ask questions of the candidates. These interviews will also be videotaped and made available to all churches of the diocese.

The Diocese of Quincy is a founding member diocese of the Anglican Church in North America, which was recognized this week by a resolution by the General Synod of the Church of England, the mother-church from which the 78-million member Anglican Communion grew. The resolution declared that “this synod recognize and affirm the desire of those who have formed the Anglican Church in North America to remain within the Anglican family.”

“This is a great encouragement,” said Fr. John Spencer, President of the Standing Committee and press officer for the diocese. “We are excited to soon have our next bishop. And as part of the ACNA, we’re energized for mission here at home, and with our partner churches around the world.”

But the true test of the Anglican Church in North America’s status and stature will come with time, said Peter Williams, a religious scholar who teaches at Miami University in Ohio.

“Technically, it’s a new denomination,” he said, citing its size and ties to other religious groups inside and outside of the Communion.

Whether it blossoms as one depends on full recognition by the Archbishop of Canterbury – and if it can keep growing during the next couple of decades.

New religious movements usually rely on charismatic leadership. It’s when those leaders retire, like Duncan, that they often face deeper challenges.

“Whether they can keep the momentum going to rebuild and retain membership remains to be seen,” Williams said. “It depends if they develop leadership that is sustainable.”

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Please note the full wording of the (amended) ACNA resolution, and also the link to the audio of the debate of that resolution.

The Church of England’s General Synod approved an amended resolution Feb. 10 to “recognize and affirm the desire of those who have formed the Anglican Church in North America to remain within the Anglican family” and to “acknowledge that this aspiration, in respect both of relations with the Church of England and membership of the Anglican Communion, raises issues which the relevant authorities of each need to explore further.”

The original private member’s motion, proposed by Lorna Ashworth, not only affirmed the ACNA but declared the Church of England in communion with it. In effect, the resolution postpones further Church of England comment on the ACNA until General Synod meets again in 2011.

ACNA quickly issued a statement celebrating General Synod’s passage of the resolution on a 309”“69 vote.

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The general synod ”“ the church’s parliament, meeting in London ”“ passed a motion recognising the breakaway group’s desire to remain Anglicans but declined to promise to ally with them in their ongoing wrangles with the mainstream US church.

In a two-hour debate, efforts by liberal supporters of the US Episcopal church failed in attempts to throw out or adjourn a motion supporting the breakaways, but succeeded in diluting it with the help of moderate bishops.

Supported and advised by conservative evangelical members of the synod, Lorna Ashworth, a lay member from Eastbourne who is of Canadian extraction, appealed to members to support the group, describing those involved as loyal, faithful Anglicans in North America.

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Today, the General Synod, the national assembly of the Church of England, meeting in London February 8-12, affirmed the Anglican Church in North America’s desire “to remain within the Anglican family.”

The Most Rev. Robert Duncan, archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America, thanked Mrs. Lorna Ashworth of Chichester for bringing the church to the attention of the General Synod. “We are very grateful to Mrs. Ashworth and the scores of other friends in the Synod of the Church of England for all they did to give us this opportunity to tell our story to the mother church of the Anglican Communion. It is very encouraging that the synod recognizes our desire to remain within the Anglican family.” said Archbishop Duncan.

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In a two-and-a-half hour in-depth debate the Church of England Synod has decided to recognise the Anglican Church in North America. The original motion wanted the Synod to “express a desire that the Church of England be in communion” with the break-away group. However, following a long deliberation of several amendments (held up by a series of technical glitches with the electronic voting system that saw the tradition division doors used), the motion finally passed reduced this to an awareness of the distress caused by the divisions, but also recognised (and affirmed) the desire of the ACNA to be “part of the Anglican family”.

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One of the most controversial motions to reach the General Synod for several years will be debated today when members discuss a proposal that the Church of England should be in communion with the breakaway US conservative Church, the Anglican Church in North America.

Lorna Ashworth, a lay member from the Diocese of Chichester, will call for the General Synod to express a wish for communion with the new group, which has 742 parishes and more than 800 clergy in the US and Canada and opposes the consecration of openly gay bishops and the blessing of gay partnerships.

Mrs Ashworth, a Canadian-born mother of three who works as a volunteer at All Saints’ Church in Eastbourne, said: “Most lay members like myself have little understanding of the technical ins and outs of canon law but what is clear, however, is the shocking and unjust treatment of historical, biblical Anglicans as they seek to continue to live out their faith in this province.”

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5. The statement “In fact, it is contrary to the policy of The Episcopal Church to seek remedies from laypersons, and it has never done so” is manifestly false and misleading.

The American Anglican Council has documented at least 48 cases where the Episcopal Church and the diocese have sued individual vestry members (see pp. 27-28 of our brief). This too is a matter of public record and we are prepared to substantiate the facts with copies of the pleadings if necessary””copies that will show from past cases that it is indeed the policy of the Episcopal Church to sue individual vestry members and that such cases are current within the courts. In Virginia alone, approximately 200 individual vestry members were sued by The Episcopal Church and the diocese. In some cases, the Episcopal Church and the Diocese have sued for punitive damages””which requires a showing of malicious behavior on the part of the vestryperson being sued. In other words, The Episcopal Church is alleging that the act of leaving amounts to the kind of malicious conduct that would be on a par with a fraud or a tort. Such damages are often triple the amount of the property and/or the accounting alleged. The Episcopal Church sued individual vestry members for punitive damages in the California cases (St. David’s North Hollywood, St. James Newport Beach, All Saints Long Beach). Even where punitive damages were not alleged, there are cases where The Episcopal Church has sued individual vestry members for an accounting of all funds expended by the church after they have departed. In any case, when the Episcopal Church and/or Diocese sues an individual vestry member, the financial costs of hiring an attorney as well as the emotional distress and intimidation is costly. In all such cases, as we have noted, the mere existence of a lawsuit has financial implications for the vestry member sued. Those consequences include the inability to obtain a mortgage for a home or other necessities, or a security clearance for a new job.

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CEN: We are still awaiting how many bishops and standing committees will consent to the election of Mary Glasspool as a suffragan bishop in the Diocese of Los Angeles. What do you think is likely to happen?

GK: Well, the trajectory of the TEC since General Convention last year implies that autonomy will again trump interdependence in the Communion and that the House of Bishops and the standing committees will give enough consents. However, you never know about the bishops. There are a few hints that some who are liberal on sexual issues, but value the Communion more highly, may not give their consent. If the percentage of bishops (‘Ordinaries with jurisdiction’) who consent in the House of Bishops is below 50%, then consent is not given.

CEN: And the Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori?

GK: Her response will be very significant. If sufficient consents are given and she goes ahead with the consecration, as scheduled on 15 May 2010, then it is difficult to see how she could, with integrity, still be a member of the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion. Even if she insisted, then the Primates’ Meeting in January 2011 would not be likely to vote for her membership again.

CEN: Mouneer Anis has resigned from that Standing Committee. What do you make of that?

GK: I understand his reasons for resigning and those do relate, partly, to the presence of the Presiding Bishop of TEC on that committee. Ironically, that may be solved if the consecration goes ahead on 15 May as I mentioned just now. He is also concerned with the balance of participation of the Primates’ representatives on that new committee ”“ the balance of ”˜bishop-in-synod’ does not seem right at the moment.

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Leaders of a new religious body affiliated with the Anglican Communion are scheduled to speak next weekend at Christ Church on Johnson Square.

The Most Rev. Robert William Duncan Jr., Archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), will deliver the sermon at the 8 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. services Feb. 14. The church is located at 28 Bull St.

The Rt. Rev. Charles Bernard Obaikol, recently retired Bishop of Soroti, Uganda, will teach a 9 a.m. Sunday school class.

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Leading conservative clergy have declared their support for a motion at this week’s General Synod which would ally the Church with the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA).

This was formed in opposition to the consecration of Gene Robinson, the first openly homosexual bishop, and the actions of liberals in the Episcopal Church of the US, which is the official Anglican body.

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(The paper to which this responds is here–KSH).

On February 2, 2010, the American Anglican Council (AAC) released an accounting of how The Episcopal Church (TEC) has spent millions of dollars in over 50 lawsuits, deposed or inhibited 12 bishops and more than 400 other clergy, and violated its own canons numerous times. The Rev. Phil Ashey, AAC Chief Operating Officer and practicing attorney, authored the paper at the request of several members of the Church of England’s General Synod in preparation for their vote regarding the nature of their relationship with the Anglican Church in North America. On February 4, Mr. Simon Sarmiento, member of the Church of England and founder of the blog Thinking Anglicans, published a rebuttal of what he called “factual inaccuracies” in the AAC’s paper. Mr. Sarmiento is not an attorney and admitted to having the help of, among others, The Episcopal Church’s lead lawyer, David Booth Beers, and the Presiding Bishop’s Special Council for property litigation, Mary E. Kostel.

Read it carefully and follow the links.

A Senior cleric of the Anglican Church of Canada has identified inaccuracies in Lorna Ashworth’s briefing paper for her private member’s motion, which will come before the General Synod next Wednesday. Similar concerns are coming from the Episcopal Church in the United States.

Mrs Ashworth’s motion will urge the Synod to “express the desire that the Church of England be in com­munion with the Anglican Church in North America [ACNA]”. Canon Alan Perry, a lecturer in ecclesiastical polity and former Prolocutor of the Province of Canada, rebuts allegations on clergy and property in her paper.

The Revd Brian Lewis, a Synod member from Chelmsford diocese, circulated the note to all members on Monday.

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Dr. Rowan Williams began his New York City tour this past week with duties related to his role as Archbishop of Canterbury, but ended it by demonstrating his academic acumen and continued interest in the Orthodox Christian faith. On Saturday, January 30, 2010, the Anglican archbishop delivered the 27th annual Father Alexander Schmemann Memorial Lecture”” this year titled “Theology and the Contemplative Calling: The Image of Humanity in the Philokalia””” and received an honorary doctoral degree from St. Vladimir’s Seminary.

During his visit, Dr. Williams also attended Divine Liturgy for the Feast of the Three Hierarchs in the seminary chapel, and had a cordial and frank discussion with St. Vladimir’s theological faculty at a private brunch. After the Divine Liturgy, Metropolitan Jonah, primate of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA), and the Anglican archbishop both publically expressed their desire for a deeper personal friendship and their hope for deeper understanding and cooperation between their respective communions. Additionally, Dr. Williams thanked the seminary community for its “overwhelming warm and generous welcome,” which he stated, surpassed even his first visit to St. Vladimir’s in 1974, and which was all that he “had hoped and prayed for.”

The Anglican archbishop received the invitation to be this year’s Schmemann Lecturer for his pioneering work in Russian Orthodox studies and his long-standing interest in Eastern Christian studies. His doctoral work at Oxford University focused on Vladimir N. Lossky, the famous mid-twentieth-century Orthodox theologian; and his first book, Wound of Knowledge, was a study of spirituality from apostolic times to the sixteenth century.

Read it carefully and read it all, noting especially the section toward the end about some audience members.

You can find the documentation here. When I saw this Monday night I tried to find it on all sorts of Episcopal Church websites but could not. When I mentioned this at a committee meeting on Tuesday the only person in the room other than myself who knew of it was Bishop Lawrence. Read it carefully and read it all–KSH.

From here:

Item 14 Anglican Church in North America (GS 1764A and 1764B)

The Rt Revd Mike Hill, Bishop of Bristol, is to move as an amendment:

Leave out everything after “That this Synod” and insert:

“(a) recognise and affirm the desire of those who have formed the Anglican Church in North America to remain within the Anglican family;

(b) acknowledge that this aspiration, in respect both of relations with the Church of England and membership of the Anglican Communion, raises issues which the relevant authorities of each need to explore further; and

(c) invite the Archbishops to report further to the Synod in 2011”.