Anglican Province of America

Infobox Christian denomination
name = Anglican Province of America (APA)

---

imagewidth =100px
caption = "Traditional, Evangelical, Episcopal, Catholic"
main_classification = Protestant
orientation = Anglican
polity = Episcopal
founder = Walter Grundorf
founded_date = 1995
founded_place =
separated_from = Anglican Church in America
parent = Anglican Episcopal Church
merger =
separations =
associations = Federation of Anglican Churches in the Americas
area = United States of America
congregations = 69
members = 6,000
footnotes = Continuing Anglican

The Anglican Province of America (APA) is one of a number of "Continuing" Anglican churches in the United States. This church considers the Episcopal Church in the USA to be heretical, thus it maintains a church separate from that body in order to follow what it considers to be a truly Christian and Anglican tradition.

The APA has shown itself to be one of the faster developing of the American continuing churches, having absorbed several smaller Anglican jurisdictions. It has also entered into intercommunion agreements with other Anglican bodies in the U.S., Africa, and Asia.

Origins: the American Episcopal Church

In the 1960s, the Episcopal Church in the USA increasingly involved itself with the Civil Rights Movement. Some in the Church began to question areas of ECUSA's involvement which seemed to them to be supporting radical causes. At the same time, revisions made in Roman Catholic liturgies caused many within the ECUSA leadership to champion an updating of the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer.

Opposition to these actions led to the founding of the American Episcopal Church (AEC) in March, 1968. At a meeting held in Mobile, Alabama, it was agreed that a new body was needed in order to preserve traditional Anglicanism.

In 1974, the Episcopal Bishop of Kentucky, David B. Reed, suggested talks between representatives of The Episcopal Church and the American Episcopal Church with the intent of exploring the possibility that some type of relationship between the two bodies might be established. The talks were, however, postponed and they did not resume until 1978 following the Congress of St. Louis (see below) at which the Continuing Anglican movement was founded.

The "Continuing Church" movement

The 1976 General Convention of the Episcopal Church in the United States approved the ordination of women to the priesthood and the first reading of legislation to adopt a new Prayer Book. Traditionalists within the Episcopal Church made plans for the Congress of St. Louis. The Congress brought together nearly 2000 Episcopalians and members of the Anglican Church of Canada and succeeded in launching the Continuing Anglican movement -- but without representatives from the American Episcopal Church.

The AEC also was growing. In 1981, the Anglican Episcopal Church of North America united with the AEC and brought with it two established dioceses in areas where the AEC had no presence. In 1983 an entire diocese of the Anglican Catholic Church left its jurisdiction and joined the AEC.

Establishing the Anglican Province of America

During the early 1990s, the leadership of the AEC began unity talks with the leadership of the Anglican Catholic Church (ACC). These talks eventually led to the merger of around 33% of the ACC (along with its Archbishop, Louis Falk) with the AEC to form the Anglican Church in America (ACA). The majority of the Anglican Catholic Church's parishes declined to participate in the merger.

The Anglican Province of America was created through a schism involving one of the ACA's dioceses. Following the resignation of Bishop Anthony F. M. Clavier as bishop ordinary of the ACA's Diocese of the Eastern United States (DEUS), a dispute developed concerning the election of a successor. The national church requested a delay, but the Standing Committee of the diocese cited the steps outlined in its diocesan constitution which did not speak of any delay.

This dispute was settled when the diocese and most of its thirty parishes left the Anglican Church in America along with a minority of the parishes of the Diocese of the West and formed a new church, the Anglican Province of America (APA). Its presiding bishop from then until the present has been the Most Reverend Walter Grundorf. While most DEUS parishes joined the new church some remained with the ACA, continuing the existence of the older Diocese of the Eastern States within the Anglican Church in America and her worldwide affiliate, the Traditional Anglican Communion.

1995 to the present

Talks with the Reformed Episcopal Church after 1995 led to the establishment of formal intercommunion and a plan to merge both bodies after a period of dialogue. Formal talks were then revived between ECUSA and the new partnership of APA and REC, receiving the official endorsement of the 2003 ECUSA General Convention. Neither these talks nor the APA's merger plan with the REC are still progressing.

Bishop Walter Grundorf was a signatory to the Bartonville Agreement on October 28, 1999. The document outlined another plan for cooperation between some of the Continuing Anglican churches and conservatives in The Episcopal Church.

A concordat of intercommunion has more recently been reached between the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), the Reformed Episcopal Church and the Anglican Province of America. Through the [http://www.anglicanfederation.org/ Federation of Anglican Churches in the Americas] , APA is a member of the Common Cause Partnership, an organization dedicated to uniting various Anglican jurisdictions to form a new conservative province of the Anglican Communion in North America. In July 2008, however, the Provincial Synod of the APA voted against formally joining the Common Cause Partnership. A number of contentious issues having not been resolved in Common Cause Partnership, including whether or not to accept the practice of ordaining women, the APA chose to take a "wait and see" position in relation to this new fellowship.

A majority of those in the APA's Diocese of the West favored membership in the Common Cause Partnership without further delays. In early September 2008 Bishop Richard Boyce moved to disaffiliate the twenty-three parish Diocese of the West from the Anglican Province of America so that it could affiliate instead with the Reformed Episcopal Church and, through her, with the Common Cause Partnership, of which the REC is a constituent member.

The REC chose to receive the Diocese of the West's two bishops, their clergy, and parishes on an individual and case-by-case basis, as has been the REC policy in the past. Because the canons of the APA do not allow for the removal of an entire diocese, but only its clergy, members, and/or parishes, Bishop Grundorf appointed a temporary administrator to oversee the diocese and those who might choose to remain a part of the APA. It remains to be seen if all twenty-three parishes will follow Bishop Boyce to the REC and if other APA parishes outside the Diocese of the West will choose to make the switch as well.

External links

* [http://www.anglicanprovince.org APA]
* [http://rechurch.org/recus/recus/intercommunion.html Articles of Intercommunion, REC and APA]
* [http://anglicanprovince.org/parishes.html Parish locator]
* [http://www.anglicanprovince.org/history.html History of the APA]
* [http://www.stalbansfl.com/ APA Cathedral - St. Albans Anglican Cathedral - Oviedo, FL]