Posted on 12/19/2006 8:34:15 AM PST by sionnsar
The New York Times: Episcopal Parishes in Virginia Vote to Secede.
Reuters: Virginia churches break from U.S. Episcopal Church.
The Washington Times: 8 Virginia flocks break away.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch: Seven Va. Episcopal churches break away.
Ruth Gledhill has comments on her blog here.
An article in the Guardian is there.
The Telegraph has an article here.
A press release from the diocese of Virginia deserves to be quoted in full:
News Update from the Diocese of Virginia
Yesterday, Sunday, December 17, eight churches in the Diocese of Virginia announced that a majority of the voting members of the congregation had voted to separate from the Episcopal Church and to join the Church of Nigeria or the Church of Uganda. They also cast a separate vote indicating that they would seek to retain church property. You can read the Bishop’s response to these developments in the newsroom at
http://www.thediocese.net/press/pressroom.shtml.Churches who announced this decision yesterday are:
Church of the Apostles, Fairfax
Church of the Word, Gainesville
Truro, Fairfax
The Falls Church, Falls Church
St Stephens, Heathsville
St Margaret’s Church, Woodbridge
Potomac Falls Episcopal, Sterling
Christ the Redeemer, CentrevilleAs of this morning the status of the following congregation, which had been expected to make an announcement, was unclear:
St. Paul’s, HaymarketPrior to yesterday’s announcement, the following congregations had taken similar action:
All Saints’ Church, Dale City
Christ our Lord, Lake Ridge
Church of the Holy Spirit, Ashburn
South Riding Church, Fairfax
In addition, the following churches are in a period of “40 Days of Discernment” and will schedule similar votes in January:
Church of the Epiphany, Herndon
Our Saviour, OatlandsThe 15 churches above represent just over 7% of the churches in the Diocese. In terms of membership numbers, the 15 churches represent 11% of baptized membership and 18% of the diocesan average Sunday attendance of 32,000 as reported in annual parochial reports. In terms of financial support for the Diocese, in 2006 the 15 churches pledged $41,000 to the diocesan operating budget, nearly half of which came from one church, All Saints’, Dale City.
As Bishop Lee wrote in his statement yesterday, he has called a special meeting of the Executive Board and Standing Committee today where they are expected to review the full range of options, paying particular attention to the pastoral care of those Episcopalians who remain in these churches following the congregational votes and who do not wish to leave the Episcopal Church.
A second diocese of Virginia press release may be found there.
The BBC has an updated profile of Archbishop Peter Akinola which includes this section (hat tip: SS):
Archbishop Akinola - a man known for his outspoken views on homosexuality - says he is thankful to God over the decision.
“Once there’s a crack in the wall, you are likely to have all sorts creeping in” he told the BBC website in Abuja.
“When we began to notice these cracks a few years back, we did try as much as humanly possible under God to patch up these cracks,” he added.
But, the Episcopal Church in the United States of America ([TEC/]Ecusa) refused to back down.
“Since the leadership of the church in America keeps doing everything we thought they would not do, those who don’t agree with them have chosen to go where they want to go and I thank God,” he said.
Terry Mattingly has comments here on Get Religion.
The Living Church has coverage there.
ABC news has an article here which includes this noteworthy section:
“If these churches choose to affiliate with another Anglican church around the world,” said the Rev. Ian T. Douglas with the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., “then that sets up a dynamic of competing churches.”
A local ABC video news story may be found by going here and then clicking on the video.
A local NBC video story may be found here.
The local Fox affiliate has a video report there.
Ken Shepherd critiques ABC’s take on the Episcopal rift.
We would be grateful to know (via email [addresses may be found under number 3 here]) of other links which should be included–KSH.
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. The low figure is because many of the churches stopped sending checks to Richmond in protest of the Gene Robinson incident.
Thank you for your continuing coverage as the Lord leads His little lambs through this maze of apostasy, and thank you for continuing to honor Arlin's memory.
As I said to Arlin's sister a couple days ago:
Hi [Sis-in-Law], thanks. I am on the email distribution list from Truro, so was aware they voted whether or not to leave ECUSA (or EXCUSA as Arlin sometimes called it). I have visited the trurochurch.org website several times this week to learn the outcome of the vote.
Yes, this was a big deal to Arlin, and surely he did discuss it often with Mother Ruth. There's a FReeper, sionnsar, who still posts articles about the Anglican situation on the Religion forum of FR -- he dedicates every single one to Arlin's memory! Huber and Newheart do the same thing.
I often wonder how much Arlin is aware of what goes on down here in our time and space dimension, not that he sits around all the time obsessing about it, but surely he has at least some general awareness of how "his causes" have progressed since he went home to Heaven, as well as how we, his loved ones, are doing. I'm not really sure how all that works. Maybe once they are up there they see the end from the beginning and already know how everything turns out.
Thanks again to all of you for your faithful coverage.
God bless you.
Sharon Adams
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