Continuing Anglican movement
The Continuing Anglican movement, also known as the Anglican Continuum, encompasses a number of Christian churches, principally based in North America, that have an Anglican identity and tradition but are not part of the Anglican Communion. These churches generally believe that traditional forms of Anglican faith and worship have been unacceptably revised or abandoned within some churches of the Anglican Communion, but that they, the Continuing Anglicans, are preserving or "continuing" both Anglican lines of apostolic succession and historic Anglican belief and practice. In 2014, Reuters reported that there were 400,000 members of the Traditional Anglican Communion, a communion of "Continuing Anglican" churches.
The term was first used in 1948 to describe members of the Church of England in Nandyal who refused to enter the emerging Church of South India, which united the Anglican Church of India, Burma and Ceylon with the Reformed and Methodist churches in India. Today, however, the term usually refers to the churches that descend from the 1977 Congress of St. Louis, at which the foundation was laid for a new Anglican church in North America and which produced the Affirmation of St. Louis, which opens with the title "The Continuation of Anglicanism". Some church bodies that pre-date the Congress of St. Louis, or are of more recent origin, have referred to themselves as "Continuing Anglican" as they are traditional in belief and practice, though did not emerge subsequent to the Congress of St. Louis.
The churches defined as "Continuing Anglican" are historically separate from GAFCON, comprising Confessing Anglican denominations such as the Anglican Church in North America, which is not a member of the Anglican Communion, though in literature GAFCON members have been referred to as "Continuing Anglican" in the sense that they seek to embody "conservative Anglicanism" or "Traditional Anglicanism".
Relations with the Anglican Communion
Continuing Anglican churches were formed by clergy and laity who left churches belonging to the Anglican Communion. Continuing Anglican churches believe that those churches have been compromised by adopting secular cultural standards and liberal approaches to theology. Continuing Anglicans generally believe that the faith of some churches in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury have become heterodox and even heretical, and therefore have not sought affiliation with the Anglican Communion. Although the term Anglican historically refers also to those churches in communion with the Church of England and the Archbishop of Canterbury, many Continuing churches, particularly those in the United States, use the term Anglican to differentiate themselves from the Episcopal Church of the United States, which they consider heterodox.In 1978, Presiding Bishop John M. Allin released a statement with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Donald Coggan, that the Anglican Church formed from the consecrations performed by Bishop Chambers was in communion neither with the See of Canterbury, nor the Episcopal Church, nor the wider Anglican Communion. At the 1998 Lambeth Conference, Resolution IV.11, Continuing Churches, was added, which asked the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates' Meeting to consider how best to initiate and maintain dialogue with such groups with a view to the reconciliation of all who partake of the Anglican tradition.
Theological unity and diversity
Anglicanism in general has historically viewed itself as a via media between the Reformed tradition and the Lutheran tradition, and after the Oxford Movement, certain clerics have sought a balance of the emphases of Catholicism and Protestantism, while tolerating a range of expressions in evangelicalism and ceremony. Clergy and laity from all Anglican churchmanship traditions have been active in the formation of the Continuing Anglican movement.There are high church, broad church, and low church Continuing Anglican jurisdictions. Some are Anglo-Catholic with richly ceremonial liturgical practices, such as the Anglican Province of Christ the King, the Anglican Catholic Church, the Anglican Province of America, and the Anglican Church in America. Others that belong to the Reformed Anglican tradition, such as the United Episcopal Church of North America, support the Thirty-Nine Articles and, in some parishes, alternate Morning Prayer with Holy Communion.
The Continuing churches in the United States reject the 1979 revision of the Book of Common Prayer by the Episcopal Church and instead use the American 1928 version, or earlier official versions of the Book of Common Prayer, for their services.
The liturgical use of the 1611 Authorized Version of the Bible is also a common feature. This is done for many reasons, including aesthetic preferences and theological opposition to what the churches regard as liberal or progressive theology, which is said to characterize some more recent translations.
The Affirmation of St. Louis—adopted at the Congress of St. Louis by over 2000 bishops, clergy, and laypeople—and to a lesser extent the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion and The Books of Homilies serve as standards of faith and unity for most Continuing churches.
History
Origins
The Continuing Anglican movement originated in the Episcopal Church in the United States of America and the Anglican Church of Canada. Related churches in other countries were founded later.In 1976, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America voted to approve the ordination of women to the priesthood and the episcopate, and also provisionally adopted a new and doctrinally controversial Book of Common Prayer, later called the 1979 version. During the following year, several thousand dissenting clergy and laypersons responded to those actions by meeting in St. Louis, Missouri, under the auspices of the Fellowship of Concerned Churchmen, where they adopted a theological statement, the Affirmation of St. Louis of 1977. The Affirmation expressed a determination "to continue in the Catholic Faith, Apostolic Order, Orthodox Worship, and Evangelical Witness of the traditional Anglican Church, doing all things necessary for the continuance of the same".
Out of this meeting came a new church with the provisional name "Anglican Church in North America ". The first bishops of the new church, later named the Anglican Catholic Church, were consecrated on January 28, 1978, in Denver, Colorado. The main Continuing Anglican churches claim apostolic succession, originating from The Episcopal Church from before the date of ordination of women to the priesthood. It is also stated that there are Old Catholic and Polish National Catholic Church consecrations in the line of succession.
In Denver, the first bishop of the new church, Charles Dale David Doren, formerly an Archdeacon of the Diocese of Daejon in South Korea, was consecrated by The Rt. Rev. Albert Arthur Chambers, formerly the Episcopal Church's Bishop of Springfield and Acting Metropolitan of the ACNA.
Joining Bishop Chambers in the consecration of Doren was The Rt. Rev. Francisco de Jesús Pagtakhan of the Philippine Independent Catholic Church. Letters of Consent and Desire for the Doren consecration were in hand from The Rt. Rev. Mark Pae and The Rt. Rev. Charles Boynton. Originally, a minimum of four consecrating bishops was sought, following the precedent of PECUSA. However, Bishop Boynton did not attend due to ill health. Bishop Pae reportedly intended to be present, but upon the release of his name, the Archbishop of Canterbury ordered him not to attend. The canonicity of the third consecrator by letter of written consent was defended at the consecration. The newly consecrated Charles Doren then joined with Chambers and Pagtakhan in consecrating as bishops James Orin Mote, Robert S. Morse, and Peter Francis Watterson. Watterson left the movement shortly afterward and became a Roman Catholic priest.
What had provisionally been called the Anglican Church in North America, was renamed the Anglican Catholic Church at the constitutional assembly in Denver, October 18–21, 1978. "Anglican Catholic Church" had previously been considered as a possible alternative name of the Protestant Episcopal Church USA before the decision to adopt the name by which it is commonly known, The Episcopal Church. The new church continued to appeal to disaffected Episcopalians to join. Some parishes of The Episcopal Church attempted to join the Anglican Catholic Church with their church building and property, leading to numerous court challenges. Only a few parishes were able to retain their property outright, such as St. James, Cleveland. By 1985, it was estimated that up to 20,000 people had left the Episcopal Church for the newly formed Anglican Catholic Church.
Early fractures and realignment
During the process of ratifying the new church's constitution, disputes developed that split its dioceses into two American churches and a separate Canadian church. These were the Anglican Catholic Church led by James Orin Mote, the Diocese of Christ the King led by Robert S. Morse, and the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada. In 1981, Charles Doren and others left the Anglican Catholic Church to found the United Episcopal Church of North America in opposition to the alleged inhospitality of the other jurisdictions towards low churchmen.In 1983, a statement of unity led to the coalescence of the Anglican Catholic Church. In 1984 a portion of the Anglican Episcopal Church of North America merged with the ACC to become the non-geographical Diocese of St. Paul.
Some Continuing Anglican bishops began discussing forming an international communion of Continuing Anglican churches in 1988, and met in 1989 to form the Traditional Anglican Communion. In 1991, multiple Anglican jurisdictions were invited to attend a conference in October in Deerfield Beach, Florida, to create a united church. The United Episcopal Church of North America and the Diocese of Christ the King declined to participate. At that meeting, a number of parishes left the Anglican Catholic Church to merge with the American Episcopal Church and form the Anglican Church in America as a part of the Traditional Anglican Communion. Some of those later formed the Anglican Province of America after the resignation of Bishop Anthony F. M. Clavier as bishop ordinary of Diocese of the Eastern United States in 1995. In 1997, additional parishes left the Anglican Catholic Church and formed the Holy Catholic Church.
In 1999, Bishop Richard Boyce requested membership in the Anglican Province of America as the Diocese of the West. In 2003, the Anglican Rite Synod in the Americas under Bishops Larry Shaver and Herbert M. Groce were received into the Anglican Province of America as the non-geographical Diocese of St. Augustine, later renamed the Diocese of Mid-America.
On March 5, 2003, Ash Wednesday, the Diocese of the Holy Cross seceded from the Anglican Province of Christ the King over questions surrounding James Provence, the successor of Robert S. Morse. On July 25, 2007, Bishop Rocco Florenza and most of the parishes in the Eastern Diocese of the Anglican Province of Christ the King withdrew, joining the Anglican Church in America.
The 2007/08 Directory of Traditional Anglican and Episcopal Parishes, published by the Fellowship of Concerned Churchmen, contained information on over 900 parishes affiliated with either the Continuing Anglican churches or the Anglican realignment movement.