Good News from the Church of Nigeria

Our sister Church: the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) is still in a covenant union with the Anglican Province of America.

The Philadelphia Experiment

Forty years ago today. 

Forward in Faith North America Assembly 2014

Please visit Anglican TV to view all of the addresses from this year's Assembly.

The 'Nazarenes'

'N' for 'Nazarenes,' نصارى 

Let us pray fervently for all the persecuted Christians of the Middle East at this most difficult time. 

'Now ye are the Body of Christ, and members in particular.' I Corinthians 12.27.

Let us remember we are all members and disciples of the One Lord, Jesus of Nazareth.

The Ongoing Disintegration of the Canterbury Communion: Kenya and Uganda

Orthodox Traditional Anglicans should closely observe developments in the Lambeth Communion Churches of Kenya and Uganda, which now openly embrace the error recently imposed by the Church of England.

The purported consecration of women to the episcopate is a church-dividing issue for Traditional Anglicans. Orthodox Anglicans cannot be in communicatio in sacris with bishops and jurisdictions that purport to ordain women to the episcopate and presbyterate. It is a matter of the esse of the Church and goes to heart of what the Church is as constituted by the Divine Will of Our Lord Jesus Christ. It is a matter of divinely-revealed ecclesiology and sacramentology, not adiaphoron.

This heresy of neo-ordination, which is a violation of the universal intent of the Undivided Catholic Church, predates the crises related to the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony and Christian moral teaching on sexuality, and is in fact the genesis of the subsequent errors concerning sexuality: we have the seen the original problem generate the others within the span of forty years. The one error leads inevitably to the others, as they share the same false doctrines on creation and anthropology, and the same false gnostic hermeneutic, or interpretation, of Holy Scripture.  As the errors concerning ordination lead to the loss of the grace of the sacraments and the constitution of the Church as established by Christ in the Apostolic Succession, so the errors concerning sexuality lead to the denigration of Holy Matrimony and the family.

A church that endorses the one will eventually endorse the others.

Let us pray that the Lord will still preserve in orthodoxy and fidelity those Anglican Churches which continue to drift away from the fullness of the Catholic and Apostolic Faith.

In the meantime, the Continuing Churches persevere, evangelise, and grow around the world.

Statement of the Russian Orthodox Church on the C of E Innovation

At the session that took place on the 14th of July 2014, the General Synod of the Church of England made a decision allowing women to serve as bishops. The Communication Service of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations is authorized to make the following statement in this regard:

The Russian Orthodox Church has been alarmed and disappointed to learn about the decision of the Church of England to admit women to the episcopate, since the centuries-old relationships between our two Churches had shown possibilities for the Orthodox to recognize the existence of apostolic succession in Anglicanism. As far back as the 19th century, the Anglicans, members of the Eastern Church Association, sought “mutual recognition” of orders between the Orthodox and the Anglican Churches and believed that “both Churches preserved the apostolic continuity and true faith in the Saviour and should accept each other in the full communion of prayers and sacraments.”

The decision to ordain women, which the Church of England took in 1992, damaged the relationships between our Churches, and the introduction of female bishops has eliminated even a theoretical possibility for the Orthodox to recognize the existence of apostolic succession in the Anglican hierarchy.

Such practice contradicts the centuries-old church tradition going back to the early Christian community. In the Christian tradition, bishops have always been regarded as direct spiritual successors of the apostles, from whom they received special grace to guide the people of God and special responsibility to protect the purity of faith, to be symbols and guarantors of the unity of the Church. The consecration of women bishops runs counter to the mode of life of the Saviour Himself and the holy apostles, as well as to the practice of the Early Church.

In our opinion, it was not a theological necessity or issues of church practice that determined the decision of the General Synod of the Church of England, but an effort to comply with the secular idea of gender equality in all spheres of life and the increasing role of women in the British society. The secularization of Christianity will alienate many faithful who, living in the modern unstable world, try to find spiritual support in the unshakable gospel’s and apostolic traditions established by Eternal and Immutable God.

The Russian Orthodox Church regrets to state that the decision allowing the elevation of women to episcopal dignity impedes considerably the dialogue between the Orthodox and the Anglicans, which has developed for many decades, and contributes for further deepening of divisions in the Christian world as a whole.

Bishopesses in the Church of England

First published in 2010...

A very personal note:

By now, avid, attentive, and even curious readers of the internet and blogosphere are keenly aware of what has transpired in the deliberations of the General Synod of the Church of England. Now a new form of order and ministry, contrary to the received Apostolic tradition and practice of the Catholic Church for two-thousand years, will be introduced into the C of E. Gone will be, in the fulness of time, the historic episcopate, the Sacrament of Holy Orders and the apostolic sacerdotal priesthood, and the historic deposit of faith, transmitted by the Apostles to their successors in the English Church from the mists of antiquity. 

In light of these developments, I wish to offer an earnest and heartfelt plea to those orthodox Anglo-Catholics now agonising and distressed over what has occurred: if you cannot accept the theological claims of the Roman Catholic Church or the position of the Eastern Orthodox Churches, please give the most intense and prayerful consideration to the Churches of the Continuing Anglican Tradition. There continues a true and genuine home for you in Anglicanism, a loving, supportive, vibrant, and growing family awaiting you and eager to receive the gift of yourselves and your spiritual vocation and charisms. There is yet an Anglicanism, scriptural, patristic, orthodox, traditional, sacramental, liturgical, Eucharistic, in which one may achieve one's calling to love, serve, adore and proclaim Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of Creation, Head and Priest of the Body and Lord of the Church. There is a living, viable option for orthodox Anglican Catholics who wish to remain Anglican as well as Catholic. I know this because I have experienced the pilgrimage in my own life. Please be assured of the prayers of thousands of orthodox Continuing Anglicans in this country and around the world for their beloved brothers and sisters in England who must now make terribly difficult decisions about their ecclesiastical future. You have brethren in Christ who love you and stand with you in this time of great pain and grief. Anglicanism lives! And it offers continuity and spiritual fulfillment to all those who seek to remain children of the Ecclesia Anglicana. Please do consider it - for the time of exodus has come.

God bless you and Our Lady keep you!