Provisional Structure Unveiled for New Province

Steve Waring
Posted on: December 4, 2008

A jubilant congregation of 700 witnessed the unveiling of a provisional governing document in the form of constitution and canons for a new Anglican province proposed for North America on Dec. 3 at Wheaton Evangelical Free Church in Wheaton, Ill.

“Today is the beginning of the healing of the Anglican Communion,” said the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, in a homily. “Many said we could never come together. We know ourselves all too well. We don’t always get along.”

The new province, arising out of the Common Cause Partnership, consists of eleven founding entities: the American Anglican Council, the Anglican Coalition in Canada, the Anglican Communion Network, the Anglican Mission in the Americas, the Anglican Network in Canada, the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, Forward in Faith North America, the Missionary Convocation of Kenya, the Missionary Convocation of the Southern Cone, the Missionary Convocation of Uganda, and the Reformed Episcopal Church.

The partnership claims to represent 1,000 congregations and 100,000 average Sunday attendance. All eleven founding entities have ties to The Episcopal Church or the Anglican Church of Canada.

During the service, it was announced that Bishop Duncan would be elected the new province’s first archbishop and primate later this year. Under the provisional constitution, the primate is elected by the bishops and may serve not more than two consecutive five-year terms.

The provisional constitution recognizes the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, its Ordinals, and the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion as standards for doctrine and discipline.

Together the provisional constitution and canons are less than nine pages in length. A draft, prepared by a task force formed in August, was finalized during an all-day meeting of the executive committee the day of the service. In an interview, Bishop Duncan compared the provisional document with the constitution and canons of The Episcopal Church, which exceed 200 pages. Other notable differences include:

• Specific language vesting title to property in the hands of the local congregation;
• Dioceses’ “clusters or networks” are specifically accorded the right to leave;
• Removal from membership of a diocese “cluster or network” after due warning by at least two-thirds of the provincial council members and at least a majority in two of the three orders of bishops, clergy and laity within the provincial council.
• A provincial tribunal whose jurisdiction shall be to determine matters in dispute arising from the constitution and canons of the province and such other matters as may be authorized by canon.

The congregation included clergy and leaders from throughout North America and nearly filled the modernistic church, which has a seating capacity of 1,000.

While most of those in attendance seemed elated by the unveiling, many Episcopalians greeted the news with sorrow or bewilderment.

“We will not predict what will or will not come out of this meeting, but simply continue to be clear that The Episcopal Church, along with the Anglican Church of Canada and La Iglesia Anglicana de Mexico, comprise the official, recognized presence of the Anglican Communion in North America,” said the Rev. Canon Charles Robertson, canon to Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, in a statement e-mailed prior to the official release of the documents. “And we reiterate what has been true of Anglicanism for centuries: that there is room within The Episcopal Church for people with different views, and we regret that some have felt the need to depart from the diversity of our common life in Christ.”

This article comes from The Living Church Foundation
http://www.livingchurch.org/

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