9
October 2014 A.D. Clubby 105th
Canterbury to ACNA: “Sorry, old boy,
you’re not in the Anglican Communion”
Oct 9 2014
2:52 pm Oct 9 9:30 pm
The Rt. Rev. Steve Wood, ACNA's bishop of the
Diocese of the Carolinas and rector of St. Andrew's Church based in Mount
Pleasant. (Wade Spees/Staff)
The spiritual head of the Anglican Communion says a group of churches that left The Episcopal Church
and its Canadian counterpart are not part of the communion, riling more
orthodox members who see the cementing of global divisions.
Its rector, the Rt. Rev. Steve
Wood, is bishop of ACNA's Diocese of the Carolinas.
"ACNA is a separate church.
It's not part of the Anglican Communion," Welby said in an Oct. 3
interview with The Church of Ireland Gazette. Instead, he called ACNA
"an ecumenical partner."
Enlarge Archbishop
of Canterbury Justin Welby.
The issue of who is in communion
with the global body remains sensitive in the wake of parishes and clergy
across the country opting to leave The Episcopal Church, often over
scriptural disputes including the nature of salvation and homosexuality.
Locally, Bishop Mark Lawrence and two-thirds of area parishes
separated from The Episcopal Church in 2012. St. Andrew's already had left, in
2010.
However, the Anglican Communion
is divided into a series of geographic provinces, and The Episcopal Church
spans the entire U.S. with a series of dioceses.
"We consider ourselves to be
the expression of the Anglican Communion in South Carolina," said Holly
Behre, spokeswoman for The Episcopal Church in South Carolina, the area parishes that remain
with The Episcopal Church.
Separating from The Episcopal
Church left breakaway groups figuring out how to remain in communion with
Canterbury.
The Diocese of South Carolina, Lawrence's group, is still discerning its
permanent affiliation within the Anglican Communion. In the interim, its has
entered a relationship with an archbishop in the Global South, comprised
largely of African and Asian provinces, to establish a direct connection to the
larger communion through a recognized body, the Rev. Canon Jim Lewis said.
St. Andrew's joined ACNA, which
today has about 112,000 members.
In essence, Welby's comments have
re-stirred a critical question: Is being Anglican about being in communion with
Caterbury, or is it about holding certain shared theological views?
Wood noted that Welby also said
in the interview, "There is no Anglican Pope," and that
"decisions are made collectively and collegially."
"The status of the ACNA within
the Anglican Communion would, by extension of the same logic, be dependent upon
the decisions of the primates and not solely upon the personal opinion
Archbishop Justin," Wood said.
Wood expects the archbishop's
comments will be addressed by other primates "as they are his peers and
share equally the responsibility of global leadership."
Some of those primates are in
Atlanta, along with Wood, for the investiture of the Most Rev. Foley Beach on
Thursday evening as the new archbishop of ACNA.
"Perhaps Archbishop Justin
might have just wished us well and offered his prayers on behalf of a unified
and biblical Anglican witness around the globe," Wood added.
Reach Jennifer Hawes at 937-5563
or follow her on Twitter at @JenBerryHawes.
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