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Friday, June 1, 2007
"To everything there is a season, a time
for every purpose under
heaven..." (Eccl. 3:1)
- June Encompass
- Ugandan Primate Restates Intention to Boycott Lambeth
- Common Cause Council of Bishops Set for Sept. 25 – 28
- Colorado Congregation Votes to Leave the Episcopal
Church
- Trinity Episcopal Church, Bristol leaves TEC
June Encompass
The June edition of Encompass is scheduled to be mailed
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Ugandan Primate Restates Intention to Boycott
Lambeth
Source:
The Living Church
5/30/2007
The Church of Uganda will boycott the 2008 Lambeth
Conference if the bishops who participated in the New Hampshire consecration
are seated at the gathering of bishops from across the Anglican Communion.
In a statement released on May 30, Archbishop Henry Orombi
of Uganda stated that as Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams had
extended invitations to "all the American bishops who consented to,
participated in, and have continued to support the consecration" of Bishop
V. Gene Robinson in New Hampshire, the Church of Uganda would honor the
commitment it made last December and not attend.
On Dec. 9, the Ugandan House of Bishops unanimously endorsed
"The Road to Lambeth", a statement prepared by the Council of Anglican
Provinces in Africa (CAPA), which stated its members "will definitely not
attend any Lambeth Conference to which the violators of the Lambeth
Resolution [1.10] are also invited as participants or observers." On May 22,
Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria noted his church’s participation in the
conference was also in doubt because of its affirmation of the CAPA
statement.
A spokesman for the Church of Uganda said Archbishop
Orombi was "simply re-stating a decision the [Ugandan bishops] took in
December, and, applying it in light of the present circumstances."
The issue "is not so much" Bishop Robinson, "as it is a
church that could make the decision that it made and persist in it, rather
than repent. At this point, the violators have been invited, so the
archbishop is now applying a decision that had already been made," the
spokesman said.
A member of the Primates’ Standing Committee, Archbishop
Orombi has been invited by the American House of Bishops to meet with its
members prior to the September 30 deadline set by the primates for
compliance with the primates’ communique. Archbishop Orombi's attendance at
the meeting has not been settled, his spokesman noted.
While The Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops meets Sept
20-25 in New Orleans, a spokesperson for the Archbishop of Canterbury could
not confirm the dates of the visit to the United States by Archbishop
Williams, the Joint Primates-ACC Standing Committee members, and ACC
Secretary General Canon Kenneth Kearon.
In a related matter, retired Archbishop of Canterbury, the
Most Rev. George Carey, queried the rationale for not inviting the bishops
of the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA) and the Convocation of Anglicans
in North America (CANA) to the Lambeth Conference.
"My opposition to the consecration of two AMiA bishops
related to the setting up of Episcopal activity in the United States which I
regarded as unconstitutional and unnecessary," he wrote in a letter to the
editor of Church of England Newspaper.
"Everything has changed in the Anglican Communion as a
result of the consecration of Gene Robinson," Archbishop Carey noted.
Note: Read Lord Carey's letter here
Common Cause Council of Bishops Set for Sept.
25 – 28
Source: Common
Cause Press Release
May 31, 2007
Bishops from the Anglican Communion Network, the Anglican
Mission in the Americas (including the Anglican Coalition in Canada), the
Convocation of Anglicans in North America, the Anglican Network in Canada,
the Anglican Province of America, Forward in Faith North America and the
Reformed Episcopal Church are invited to attend the first-ever Common Cause
Council of Bishops in Pittsburgh, PA, September 25-28. Two of the Common
Cause Partners, the American Anglican Council and Anglican Essentials
Canada, are not ecclesial jurisdictions and do not have bishops. Several
other Anglican jurisdictions are currently in the membership process.
Since its formation in 2004, Anglican bodies connected to
each other through Common Cause have committed to working together for "a
Biblical, missionary and united Anglicanism in North America." Together,
they have crafted a common theological statement and articles of federation.
Both are being considered and adopted by each Common Cause Partner.
"By the time we meet, the House of Bishops of the
Episcopal Church will have given its response to the Anglican Communion as
to its decision to 'walk apart.' By contrast, I expect our gathering to
signal a new level of 'walking together' both with each other and with the
wider Anglican world," wrote Anglican Communion Network Moderator and Common
Cause convener Bishop Robert Duncan. The meeting, said Bishop Duncan, is the
result of many years of work toward Anglican unity, work responding to
resolutions of both the Lambeth Conference of Bishops and The Episcopal
Church’s General Convention.
Bishop Duncan went on to describe the purpose of the
gathering as fivefold.
1) to take the Common Cause Partnership to the next level of development in
mission together;
2) to showcase ministry initiatives of any of the partners that might be
shared with all the partners (e.g., The Anglican Relief and Development
Fund);
3) to share understandings of the purpose and role of bishops such that some
common guidelines for the making of bishops relative to numbers of
communicants and congregations might be developed;
4) to consider whether a permanent Common Cause College of Bishops might be
created, in order that ever greater levels of communication, cooperation and
collaboration can be built; and
5) to initiate discussion of the creation of an "Anglican Union" among the
partners, moving forward the vision of the Primates of the Global South for
a new "ecclesiastical structure of the Anglican Communion in the USA."
"The Council of Bishops lacks the voice of the laity. It
is not a full synod of the Common Cause Partners, but it is the next step
agreed upon by the Common Cause Roundtable. While it is not the end of our
journey, it does continue the trajectory of ever greater unity and ever
closer cooperation between those of us who know Jesus as the only Lord. In
the challenging weeks and months ahead, let us say our prayers, do the work
before us and trust 'that things which were cast down are being raised up,
and things which had grown old are being made new,'" said Bishop Duncan.
Colorado Congregation Votes to Leave the
Episcopal Church
Source: Grace
Church and St. Stephen's Parish, Colorado Springs, Press Release
May 26, 2007
Contact: Alan Crippen
(Colorado Springs, Colorado) Grace Church and St.
Stephen's Parish voted to affiliate with the Convocation of Anglicans in
North America (CANA) in a congregational election that concluded today. Of
the 370 votes cast, an overwhelming 342, or 93%, voted for the mother church
of Anglicanism in Colorado Springs and one of the oldest Episcopal Churches
in Colorado to leave the Episcopal Church over its departure from
traditional Christian beliefs and practice.
Last March the vestry, or governing board of the Parish,
had voted to join CANA in a provisional affiliation that was ratified by the
congregation today. The Parish’s new affiliation with CANA, an American
missionary diocese of the Church of Nigeria and the largest Anglican Church
in the world, allows Grace Church and St. Stephen’s the freedom to continue
its Gospel ministry unmolested by theological innovators and revisionists in
the Episcopal Church.
Jon Wroblewski, senior warden of the parish’s vestry said,
"The congregation’s decision to join CANA is the most important decision in
Grace Church and St. Stephen's 135 year history. We have decided to remain
true to the faith of our ancestors and the founders of this parish even as
the Episcopal Church departs from the faith and the Anglican Communion."
Founded in 1872, Grace Church and St. Stephen's was the
first Anglican Church in Colorado Springs and helped to establish all the
other Episcopal Churches in the city including: The Chapel of our Savior,
St. Michael's, and Holy Spirit (now defunct), St. Francis (now defunct), and
St. Andrew's in Manitou Springs. Grace Church and St. Stephen's pre-dates
the existence of the Diocese of Colorado (1887).
Read the complete press release here
Trinity Episcopal Church, Bristol leaves TEC
Source: Hartford
Courant
May 31 2007
By: Elizabeth Hamilton - Courant Staff Writer
Trinity Episcopal Church in Bristol - one of six churches
at odds with Bishop Andrew Smith over his vote to ordain a gay bishop - has
become the first Connecticut parish to split from the wider Episcopal
Church.
Members of the Bristol congregation voted overwhelmingly
in January to join the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, a
self-described mission of the conservative Anglican Church of Nigeria, but
an application was not made until late April.
Continue reading "Trinity
Episcopal Church, Bristol leaves TEC"
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