Content about America

A South Carolina court has been asked “Who and what are Episcopalians and how is that church organized?” after the Diocese of South Carolina filed a lawsuit yesterday against the national Episcopal Church.  The 65-page complaint asks the court to issue an injunction banning Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and her allies in South Carolina from using the name or presuming to act on behalf of the diocese and further asks the court to affirm the legality of the diocese’s secession from the General Convention of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has rejected the argument that “guns do not kill people, people kill people” stating the Connecticut school shooting was facilitated by the easy access to firearms permitted by U.S. laws.

In his final “Thought for the Day” broadcast as Archbishop of Canterbury on BBC Radio 4, Dr. Williams acknowledged that by itself gun control will not end violence, but their strict regulation would curtail it.

Archbishop Tikhon of Philadelphia and Eastern Pennsylvania has been elected Primate of the Orthodox Church in America.

Meeting at Holy Trinity Church in Parma, Ohio, 593 delegates elected the 46 year old convert from the Episcopal Church on the third ballot.  Tikhon succeeds Metropolitan Jonah of Washington – also a convert from the Episcopal Church – as leader of the church.

The mother church of the Anglican Mission in America has voted to join the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA).

At a parish meeting on 5 Nov 2012, All Saints Church in Pawleys Island, South Carolina was asked to give its support to one of two propositions. Proposal 1 would affiliate the historic congregation with the ACNA, while proposal 2 would align the church with the Anglican Mission in America's (AMiA) Society for Mission and Apostolic Works.

The flagship parish of the Anglican Mission in America – All Saints Pawleys Island – is set to vote at a special parish meeting this fall on its rector’s proposal the congregation join the Anglican Church in North America.

The Rev. Robert L. Grafe, Jr.,  rector of the founding parish of the AMiA, told Anglican Ink his congregation was entering a “season of prayer and discernment.”

"As per your unanimous request, as conveyed to me by Chancellor Fr. John Jillions, I hereby tender my resignation as Primate of the Orthodox Church in America, and humbly request another Episcopal assignment.

“I had come to the realization long ago that that I have neither the personality nor the temperament for the position of Primate, a position I never sought nor desired.

The year 2011 could have been the Anglican Church in North America’s annus horribilis, Archbishop Robert Duncan told the bishop and delegates attending its fourth provincial council meeting at the Ridgecrest Conference Center in Western North Carolina on 6 June 2012.

But at year’s end the ACNA was the stronger for its engagement with the chaos surrounding the collapse of the Anglican Mission in America.  “The only way to explain what has happened is to speak of God’s hand and God’s favor” the archbishop said in his presidential address.

"I received word this morning via email that Archbishop Eliud Wabukala has withdrawn from the College of Consultors for the Anglican Mission.  I am obviously disappointed, but I am certain that he has been under enormous pressure from many in the GAFCON leadership. Our commitment to move forward with our vision to position the AMiA as a 'Society of Mission,' and to hold the necessary convocation to ratify a formal Constitution and Statutes on June 4th in order to give shape and order to our common life in the Mission, will continue."

The Rt. Rev. Charles H. Murphy, III

The Anglican Church of North America (ACNA) has received two bishops from the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA) as honorary temporary assistant bishops.

The Rt. Rev. T.J. Johnston will serve as an assistant bishop to the Rt. Rev. Foley Beach of the Anglican Diocese of the South and the Rt. Rev. John  Miller will serve as an assistant bishop to the Rt. Rev. Neil Lebahr of the Gulf Atlantic Diocese, Anglican Ink has learned.

In the light of all this, we agree to welcome you in our Province as you request in your petition while you move on in normalizing your position as a plausible Anglican missionary society. As to the nature and the modality of the canonical power transfer, all this will be discussed when we meet in the United Kingdom along with other bishops from the Province of the Anglican Church of Congo who will be in attendance.

The Archbishop of Kenya has criticized idolatry of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) saying faith in Christ, not works performed in his name, is the path of salvation.

The 22 February 2012 letter written by Archbishop Eliud Wabukala on behalf of the Gafcon primates chastised Christians who in the pursuit of social and economic change, lost sight of the centrality of the cross and the primacy of repentance and amendment of life.  “While it is obvious that such good things as feeding the hungry, fighting disease, improving education and national prosperity are to be desired by all, by themselves any human dream can become a substitute gospel which renders repentance and the cross of Christ irrelevant,” he said.