(A press release received via email).
The Annual Synod of the Diocese of Quincy’s meeting November 7-8 in Quincy, Illinois, has voted by strong margins to realign itself with the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, breaking its ties with The Episcopal Church in the US. On two key votes more than ¾ of the clergy and lay deputies voted in favor of the realignment.
The move came after several years of prayer and discernment about the diocese’s relationship with The Episcopal Church. Many in the Quincy Diocese, both clergy and lay people, have been at odds with the national leadership and other dioceses over the authority of the Bible, church order and discipline, and the church’s moral standards and teaching on Christian marriage.
On the vote to disaffiliate from the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, 75% of the clergy and 82% of the lay deputies voted in favor. On the subsequent vote to realign the diocese with the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone the vote in favor was 92% in the clergy order and 87% in the lay order.
“This decision was not made lightly,” said Fr. John Spencer, press officer for the diocese. “We have talked and prayed about this for a very long time. But we take our relationship to the Anglican Communion very seriously. Since 2003, over half the Provinces of the Anglican Communion have been in a state of broken Communion with The Episcopal Church. By realigning with the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone, we are now back in full communion with the majority of over 75 million Anglicans around the world.”
Canon Ed den Blaauwen, incoming President of the Standing Committee, said the focus of the diocese will remain on mission. “Our churches and our diocese will continue in mission and ministry locally and around the world. We feel much at home under the oversight of Archbishop Gregory Venables, Primate of the Southern Cone, who has warmly welcomed us into affiliation with that Province,” den Blaauwen said. “We are once again back in full fellowship with our brother and sister Anglicans.”
Shortly after the votes were taken, Canon den Blaauwen, who acted as chairman for the Synod, read a letter from Archbishop Venables welcoming Quincy as a member of the Province of the Southern Cone.
Bishop Keith Ackerman who retired from leadership of the diocese on November 1, spoke to the gathering Friday afternoon just before the synod convened. Quoting the Epistle of Jude, he encouraged them to remain faithful to the Gospel of Christ and the historic faith of the Christian Church as they considered the momentous decisions before them.
“While the votes show there was very strong support for this decision,” Fr. Spencer said, “we realize this was not a unanimous decision.” By a separate action, the synod made provision for a nine months grace period during which a congregation or member of the clergy might consider withdrawing from the diocese in order to stay in the Episcopal Church. “It is a matter of allowing everyone to follow their consciences in these very difficult times, without recrimination,” Spencer said.
Welcome home to the Anglican Church in the Province of the Southern Cone of the Americas!
May God in His mercy shower upon Bishop Ackerman and the Diocese of Quincy torrents of His richest blessings of protection, prosperity, and grace.
Way to go!!!!
On deck: Diocese of Forth Worth.
I’m sympathetic, but what does this really accomplish? If they’re still in the Anglican Communion, then they are still in bed with TEC. Unless they’re on the way to Rome it doesn’t make much difference.
Isn’t that a bit of an over statement Crypto? I mean, being in the Anglican Communion ≠being in bed with TEC. If you are sympathetic, how? That’s not a lot of sympathy. I think for many, it accomplishes breaking ties with a lot of crypto pagans.
Re # 6
Justice1,
In the Orthodox Church we have an old saying. “You are who you are in communion with.” While I could (and do) take issue with Crypto’s assertion that the only path to making a difference is to kiss the Pope’s ring, it remains true that as long as sacramental communion remains in place with TEC that is at the least an implicit declaration that nothing they have done is beyond the pale.
In the catholic tradition communion in sacris between churches and bishops represents agreement on all vital points of faith. Thus heresy demands severance of communion. The Fathers are pretty much unanimous on this point.
That said this is certainly a step in the right direction, even as we must take note that it is ONLY a step.
Under the mercy,
[url=http://ad-orientem.blogspot.com/]John[/url]
An [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gj4pUphDitA]Orthodox [/url] Christian
Ad Orientem (#7),
You are absolutely right that what we are dealing with in Anglicanism, and throughout the Christian world, is a communion-breaking issue. I can only speak for myself here, but my participation in the Common Cause effort is explicitly and intentionally that of helping to create a RIVAL and REPLACEMENT province to TEC and the ACoC in North America, not a mere parallel or alternative province. I am not part of the “loyal opposition.” I am the avowed public enemy of TEC’s heretical leadership.
Never again will I exchange the peace with an open, public advocate of the relativist ideology or the “gay is OK” delusion (until such a person repents), much less receive communion from the hands of such a misguided person. I am very clear and very emphatic about that.
But I’m willing to give my bishop (Bill Love of Albany) some more time to navigate the choppy waters we’re sailing through, in terms of who he is in communion with. And meanwhile, I hang out almost entirely with those who have already left TEC, receiving communion almost exclusively in CANA, Ugandan, or AMiA churches.
But in this world, things often get messy, which calls for a lot of patience and loving forbearance with one another as we seek to build up the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, by strengthening whatever corner of it we find ourselves in.
I’m glad that you keep visiting this blog and contributing comments from an eastern Orthodox perspective. You help remind us of the eternal truth that “Christos nika,” Christ conquers! And he will triumph in the end, for he will eventually come and claim a bride that is without stain or blemish. And then there will be one flock, with one shepherd.
David Handy+
Re # 8
David,
Thank you for your kind comment. And while I agree that Quincy etc. have a ways to go I do not wish my previous comment to detract from the importance of their move. It is a step, but an important one.
You might find [url=http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles8/Bouteneff-An-Interview-With-His-Grace-Bishop-Hilarion-Of-Vienna-And-Austria.php]this interview[/url] with Bp. +Hilarion of Vienna interesting. Although much of the interview deals with issues of interest mainly to us E-O ers, near the bottom he makes some observations about Orthodox participation in the ecumenical movement. I think the views he expresses are fast becoming the majority opinion in Orthodoxy (it they have not already become such).
Under the mercy,
[url=http://ad-orientem.blogspot.com/]John[/url]
An [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gj4pUphDitA]Orthodox [/url] Christian
ooops it= if* in the last sentence above
ICXC
John
#5 has a point. Let me try to say it a different way. TEC is in communion with Canterbury. The Southern Cone is in communion with Canterbury. That’s the way it was prior to Quincy’s move this weekend. That’s still the way it is since Quincy’s move this weekend. What’s the difference?
Some say the difference is that now Quincy belongs to one of those provinces in the Anglican Communion that is in either broken or impaired communion with TEC. But the fact remains that both TEC and the Southern Cone are in communion with Canterbury, and therefore at least in some sense that makes them part of the same thing. Maybe it’s true that TEC clergy would not be able to visit a Southern Cone diocese or parish and perform priestly or episcopal ministry. But they are still both in the Anglican Communion.
The only thing that will truly make a difference would be if TEC were not in any sense in, or part of, or related to the Anglican Communion and any and all of its provinces in any way, shape or form. And that will NEVER happen. Neither the will nor the means to do that exists.
Furthermore, unless the new province, and the rest of the Anglican Communion for that matter, can come up with something very much like the Roman Catholic papacy and its Magisterium, then wherever the Dioceses of San Joaquin, Quincy and Fort Worth go, they carry the seeds of their own destruction with them. And that is because as has been made all too clear, whoever pushes his agenda the hardest gets his way. This time around it was homosexuality. The new province will be just as vulnerable to some other issue that could lead to yet another split, and then they’d be right back to the drawing board.
Truly, truly I say to you: I hate to be a nay-sayer, but that is how it looks to me.
We appreciate our continuing relationship with the diocese of Quincy through its new province and wish them all the best for the future. We are gladdened that they have not followed the siren calls elsewhere.
May God bless and keep them.
Thank you, DaveW, for spelling out what I meant to suggest in my first post. And you’re quite right, the tensions (contradictions, really) inherent in the Anglican communion must be resolved or we will be back at square one eventually. The 1662 BCP/39 Articles “orthodox” Anglicans may pat Anglo-Catholics on the head every so often, but there’s really no way it will work in the long run. It should be further pointed out that communion is [i]bishop to bishop[/i]. The business arrangement we call TEC has no eccesiological reality.
I really want to respond to this post again but I have a third service in a rural parish. But when I return….
Communion is of God’s children in His service. Are you RC Crypto Papist – would you like to clarify where you are coming from?
I’m afraid that’s a subjective description of communion, Pageantmaster. Christ founded a visible Church, an objective reality ([i]vid.[/i] Matt. 16:18). I’m not RC. I am thoroughly Anglican, and thoroughly Catholic. But if I must choose between the two, it will be the latter.
“The new province will be just as vulnerable to some other issue that could lead to yet another split, and then they’d be right back to the drawing board.”
Well, I can think of such an “issue” without any difficulty, and it isn’t some new and unheard-of one, either; and I don’t think it necessary to spell it out here.
#16 Crypto Papist – thanks for clarifying.
#17 Dr Tighe – did someone give an old lamp a rub, and call abracadabra?
#16 Crypto Papist
I would add that all power to you for the course you have taken. I am not from the same end of the church as you and would not wish to pat anyone on the head patronisingly, but as far as I am concerned you and others are a necessary part of the Anglican Church – you have much to teach us and we would be poorer without you. That is why I rejoice for faithful Anglicans like those in Quincy, San Joaquin, Pittsburgh, Fort Worth and other places who have been enabled to remain Anglican thanks to the rescue efforts of the Province of the Southern Cone. We should all be supporting this and them.
Prayers for your situation as well.
If we wish to establish our own identity – or reestablish it – we can have in the most literal way nothing to do with TEC because its positions are in head to head contradictions with ours. If we deny this contradiction, the we have made our own independent identity impossible because an identity requires a core self-image, something not subject to compromise and equivocation. For this reason, I have greed with David Handy all along. Are we going to stand on our own two feet? Then it is time to cut the old apron string that ties us to the ABC. The past is present to us, and because it is, the future is as R. Frost described love, as “sea to shore…/ Counting an endless repetition.” Or to put it another way, the sun is behind us, not in our eyes, and illuminates the path before us. Larry