Anglican Communion

WOODBRIDGE, Va. -- The Anglican archbishop of Nigeria, Peter J. Akinola, installed Bishop Martyn Minns of Virginia yesterday as the new leader of a diocese that would take in congregations around the country that want to leave the Episcopal Church, rejecting requests by leaders of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church to refrain from taking part in the ceremony. Akinola's role in the installation celebration for Minns forged another tie in an increasingly confident alliance between theological traditionalists in the United States and church leaders overseas who are opposed to the Episcopal Church's liberal stance on homosexuality.

Matthew Hay Brown's fine article about the election of my colleague, the Rev. Canon Mary Glasspool, as a bishop suffragan in the Diocese of Los Angeles ("Annapolis cleric's election is making waves and history," Dec. 9) adds to the joy felt by those of us those in Maryland who have been graced by her ministries since 1992. She will take office when approved by a majority of the other dioceses and consecrated by our presiding bishop, the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori. Our loss is California's gain.

An Anglican Communion panel in London rebuked the Episcopal Church yesterday for approving its first gay bishop, but the Episcopal leadership showed no sign of retreat in a simmering dispute that has threatened to split the global church. The report, issued by an advisory commission of the worldwide Anglican Communion, called for the Episcopal Church to express regret for consecrating Bishop V. Gene Robinson, who leads the Diocese of New Hampshire, and place a moratorium on similar promotions.

The humbling thing, for the Rev. Canon Mary D. Glasspool, has been the e-mail. The election over the weekend of the Annapolis priest to be the first openly lesbian bishop in the worldwide Anglican Communion drew a stern rebuke from the Archbishop of Canterbury, spiritual leader of the 70 million-member church. Struggling to hold together a denomination divided over homosexuality, Archbishop Rowan D. Williams warned that Glasspool's confirmation could jeopardize relations in a church already in turmoil after the consecration of an openly gay bishop in 2003.

Two Southern California Episcopal parishes announced yesterday that they had broken with the national church over the issue of homosexuality, placing themselves under the jurisdiction of a conservative Anglican bishop from Africa. The announcement by All Saints Church in Long Beach, Calif., and St. James Parish in Newport Beach, Calif., escalated a confrontation within the Episcopal Church over the role of gay clergy and the proper interpretation of Scripture. The move marked the first time that any of the 147 parishes in the six-county Los Angeles Episcopal Diocese had made good on threats to pull out of the 2.3 million-member national Episcopal Church.

LONDON - A panel appointed by the archbishop of Canterbury is poised to unveil recommendations tomorrow on how to head off possible schism in the worldwide Anglican Communion triggered by the consecration of a gay American bishop. While the Lambeth Commission's recommendations are known to only a few, there is widespread speculation that the Episcopal Church, the self-governing U.S. member of the Anglican Communion, will be disciplined or rebuked over the consecration last year of the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire.

Of the fates that might await the Most Rev. Frank T. Griswold after he retires as the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States, obscurity will not be one of them. When the history of the angry disputes in mainline Protestantism over the acceptance of homosexuality is written, Griswold, 68, will be remembered for leading the Episcopal Church when it elected the first openly gay man as a bishop. The decision deeply offended some in the church, and many primates of the worldwide Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church is the American arm, saw it as a blatant disregard of Scripture.

WASHINGTON -- One day after U.S. Roman Catholic bishops steadfastly reaffirmed the ban on women in the priesthood, the Episcopal Church has consecrated the second woman bishop in its history.Amid medieval pomp and ceremony and the laying on of hands by more than 20 red-and-white robed bishops at the Washington Cathedral, the Rev. Jane Holmes Dixon was elevated to the episcopacy vowing to "testify to Christ's sovereignty as Lord of lords and King of kings."Bishop Dixon, 54, who has been rector of a parish in Laurel, Md., and was ordained a priest in 1982, will become suffragan (assistant)

With conservative congregations threatening rebellion, the American Episcopal Church is expected Monday to confirm the election of the first openly gay bishop in the worldwide Anglican Communion. Christians across the nation will be watching the Episcopal national convention in Minneapolis this weekend to see how it grapples with the issue of homosexuality, one of the most challenging and contentious issues in American religious life. If, as expected, the convention confirms the Rev. Canon V. Gene Robinson - an openly gay man who was recently elected bishop of New Hampshire - parishes from Texas to Buenos Aires are warning of a major realignment in the 75 million-member Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church is the U.S. branch.

WHEN THE Episcopal Church confirmed the election of its first openly gay bishop this month, it exposed a cultural and spiritual chasm between the faithful in America and millions of their brethren in the developing world. To many Episcopalians, the confirmation of the Rev. Canon V. Gene Robinson, an openly gay man, was a welcome sign of the church's acceptance of homosexuals. But many in the worldwide Anglican Communion - of which the Episcopal Church is the U.S. branch - were horrified.

In the wake of Vatican plans to make it easier for Episcopalians to become Catholic, the Episcopal bishop of Maryland would like to make one point clear: The door swings both ways. Lost in talk of the splintering of the Anglican Communion, Bishop Eugene Taylor Sutton says, is the appeal that the 45,000-member Episcopal Diocese of Maryland has held for former Roman Catholics and others looking for a big-tent church. While attention focused on the conversion en masse last month of a Catonsville-based order of Episcopal nuns to the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore, the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland has received three former Roman Catholic clergy in the past couple of months, Sutton says.

Episcopalians forming rival denomination WHEATON, Ill.: Conservatives alienated from the Episcopal Church said yesterday that they were founding a rival church denomination, the biggest challenge yet to the authority of the Episcopal Church since it ordained an openly gay bishop five years ago. The move threatens the fragile unity of the Anglican Communion, the world's third-largest Christian body, made up of 38 provinces around the world that trace their...

FRESNO, Calif. -- The Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin in California became the first in the nation yesterday to secede from the Episcopal Church, taking the historic, risky step as part of a years-long struggle within the church and global Anglican Communion over homosexuality and biblical authority. Delegates to San Joaquin's annual convention then also formally accepted an invitation to align the largely rural 14-county diocese with a conservative Anglican leader overseas, Archbishop Gregory James Venables of Argentina.

Episcopals find unity in diversity On Monday, The Sun ran a front-page article describing a worship service held near Stevenson by a group of dissident Episcopalians under the auspices of the Diocese of Chile ("Churches form links abroad," May 28). The article, of course, stressed divisions within the Anglican Communion - between the church in the United States and the church in the developing world - over a number of issues, including human sexuality. On that same Sunday, the Feast of Pentecost, in which the church offers thanksgiving for the gift of the Holy Spirit's making us one people, a service was also held at the Episcopal Cathedral of the Incarnation on University Parkway.

As they professed their faith, Hector Zavala, Anglican bishop of the Diocese of Chile, laid his hands on the heads of three young people yesterday and welcomed them into his flock. The cleric, wearing vestments decorated with indigenous patterns and the Chilean national flower, was leading the first confirmation ceremony at his mission church in the United States - whose congregation worships in the heart of Baltimore County's Green Spring Valley. The Church of the Resurrection is one of many in the United States forming relationships with foreign bishops after growing increasingly dissatisfied with the perceived liberal direction of the Episcopal Church, the U.S. arm of the international Anglican Communion.

WOODBRIDGE, Va. -- The Anglican archbishop of Nigeria, Peter J. Akinola, installed Bishop Martyn Minns of Virginia yesterday as the new leader of a diocese that would take in congregations around the country that want to leave the Episcopal Church, rejecting requests by leaders of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church to refrain from taking part in the ceremony. Akinola's role in the installation celebration for Minns forged another tie in an increasingly confident alliance between theological traditionalists in the United States and church leaders overseas who are opposed to the Episcopal Church's liberal stance on homosexuality.

As they professed their faith, Hector Zavala, Anglican bishop of the Diocese of Chile, laid his hands on the heads of three young people yesterday and welcomed them into his flock. The cleric, wearing vestments decorated with indigenous patterns and the Chilean national flower, was leading the first confirmation ceremony at his mission church in the United States - whose congregation worships in the heart of Baltimore County's Green Spring Valley. The Church of the Resurrection is one of many in the United States forming relationships with foreign bishops after growing increasingly dissatisfied with the perceived liberal direction of the Episcopal Church, the U.S. arm of the international Anglican Communion.

LONDON - The archbishop of Canterbury, spiritual leader of the world's 79 million Anglican Christians, said yesterday that he would convene an extraordinary meeting of church leaders here to avert a schism over the confirmation of an openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church in the United States. The archbishop, Rowan Williams, regarded as first among equals in the Anglican Church, said the meeting would be held in October. "I am clear that the anxieties caused by recent developments have reached the point where we will need to sit down and discuss their consequences," he said in a statement.

DURHAM, N.C. -- The news of schism in the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia is very sad for all Christians everywhere, regardless of denomination or persuasion. One of the wardens of The Falls Church put it well: There is a death in the family. As a part of the family - as a Christian and, moreover, as an Anglican - I am in mourning. Last month, two of the oldest, largest and wealthiest congregations in Virginia voted to leave the Episcopal Church and affiliate with the Anglican Province of Nigeria, with whom they share similar convictions concerning God's revelation in Scripture.

For about 30 years, the Episcopal Church has been one big unhappy family. Under one roof there were female bishops and male bishops who would not ordain women. There were parishes that celebrated gay weddings and parishes that denounced them; theologians sure that Jesus was the only route to salvation, and theologians who disagreed. Now, after years of threats, the family is breaking up. As many as eight conservative Episcopal churches in Virginia are expected to announce today that their parishioners have voted to cut their ties with the Episcopal Church.