The Rev. Canon Martyn Minns is rector of Truro Church in Fairfax, Va., one of the largest congregations in the Episcopal Church and one of the most vocal in resisting changes to the Church’s traditional teaching on human sexuality. Canon Minns is also on a first name basis with many leaders in the Anglican Communion Network and the provinces of the Anglican Communion located in the Global South.
While he was attending the installation of the Most Rev. John Chew as Primate of the Anglican Province of Southeast Asia, the Church of the Holy Spirit, Ashburn, a mission congregation which Truro has supported financially since it planted the congregation some five years ago, announced that it had left the Diocese of Virginia and the Episcopal Church. The Living Church, spoke with Canon Minns on Feb. 11 after his return to the United States.
TLC: Your senior warden said recently that financial support by Truro would probably continue for Holy Spirit. Do you agree and could you tell us the amount of such support?
Canon Minns: I don’t have the numbers right in front of me, but from the beginning the total support has been in the neighborhood of $150,000. The Truro budget for this year has not been finalized, but I imagine our contribution to Holy Spirit will be substantial, probably about the same as it was last year which was $30,000.
TLC: Truro is part of a coalition of churches in the Diocese of Virginia that recently announced they were participating in talks about their future within the Episcopal Church. How is that process going?
Canon Minns: The special committee represents between 20 and 30 congregations who are trying to find a way that allows us to maintain our current focus on mission while maintaining the highest degree of communion possible with the bishop and diocese. South Riding [which announced its departure in January] and Holy Spirit are part of that coalition and will remain so. Truro is in a very different setting from Holy Spirit, but is wrestling with the same issues. Truro parish, for example, has been around since the 1700s, but we have not always been in the same building.
TLC: The Diocese of Virginia has recently announced the composition of the search committee to elect a bishop coadjutor. What do you think of the composition?
Canon Minns: A number of the committee members are what I would call ‘loyalist’ types, but there is also someone who was previously on the staff at Truro. I don’t know what their mandate will be. I hope they will be asked to find candidates who represent the breadth of theological views found in our diocese. I think they ought to be able to develop a more balanced slate than the one recently announced for Presiding Bishop.
TLC: Having returned from Singapore where many members of the Global South leadership in the Anglican Communion were present, what is your perception of current events in the Anglican Communion?
Canon Minns: Nothing has changed all that much. I think General Convention will try to make a fudge. I don’t think that is something that the Global South can accept. They cannot be seen to be embracing Western immorality. The rest of the Communion has been very gracious in giving us the time we said we needed, but they are expecting a major turnaround. I don’t think that is going to happen. I also think it would be a mistake to assume that this is a matter of indifference to the majority of laity in those provinces. The Global South primates seem for the most part to be very much in tune with the mind of their provinces. The rest of the Communion is apparently unwilling to follow the innovations that the Episcopal Church is pursuing.
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