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.
Anglican Mainstream has a posting which features a table of the recent votes. Found [url=http://www.anglican-mainstream.net/index.php/2008/02/18/more-canadian-anglican-congregations-decide-their-future-lies-with-the-southern-cone/ ]here[/url]. The votes, shall we say, were not cliff-hangers.
#1, they certainly weren’t. Just for the fun of it I calculated some %’s concerning myself with counted votes only. They were (for) – 100% (Holy Cross), 100% (?? I forgot), 97.8% (St. Mathew), 97.7% (ST. George), and 88.2% (ST. Mary) . One church voted 54.4% for (St. Chad – this particular church has a total congregation of 22 members). Very interesting!!