Senior bishops express "shock" at the Episcopal Church's decision to depose the Bishop of Pittsburgh
The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams is facing growing pressure to create a new Anglican province for conservatives after a leading evangelical was effectively defrocked in the US.
Six senior Church of England bishops have come out in support of deposed US bishop Bob Duncan, declaring themselves “deeply saddened and shocked.”
Headed by the Bishop of Winchester, the Right Rev Michael Scott-Joynt, the Bishops of Blackburn, Chester, Chichester, Exeter and Rochester joined in declaring their belief that the deposed Bishop of Pittsburgh remains “a bishop in good standing in the Anglican Communion.”
In an interview with The Times, the Bishop of Rochester Dr Michael Nazir-Ali said the time had now come for Dr Williams to create a new province for conservatives in the US.
Another senior bishop, a former primate of the Southern Cone province in Latin America, also wrote an open letter to Dr Williams demanding the immediate suspension of The Episcopal Church from the Anglican Communion and for the recognition of a new conservative province.
Bishops of The Episcopal Church voted last week to depose Bishop Duncan after deciding that he had breached canon law by “abandonment of the communion of the church.”
Bishop Duncan has led his diocese, from the Church’s conservative evangelical wing, in a rebellion against the liberal direction of the wider church in the West.
Next month, under his leadership, the diocese had been expected to vote to join the Province of the Southern Cone, headed by British-born primate Bishop Gregory Venables.
Bishop Venables has already received Bishop Duncan into his province and a majority in the diocese is expected to go ahead with the vote and join him there.
But a minority will remain with the US-based province and work on re-establishing the Pittsburgh diocese, marking the beginning of myriad expensive and lengthy legal battles over who owns the churches and other valuable ecclesiastical properties attached to the diocese.
Bishops of the Episcopal Church voted by 88 to 35 at a meeting in Salt Lake City to remove Bishop Duncan from all ordained ministry.
It is significant that Church of England bishops as senior as Bishop Scott-Joynt and Dr Michael Nazir-Ali continue to recognise Bishop Duncan’s ministry.
Their statement will increase speculation that the split in the US church is heading over the Atlantic to Britain.
Dr Nazir-Ali told The Times: “I hope that a province of the orthodox in America will be recognised in the Anglican Communion.” He said that what had happened to Bishop Duncan showed that a structural solution was necessary.
A new province would be the 39th province of the communion. It would not be the first to share geographical territory with another province. In Europe, there are two Anglican jurisdictions operating already: the Church of England and The Episcopal Church.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, who is visiting Lourdes this week, made no comment. At Lourdes on Wednesday this week, he will be addressing a pilgrimage of Anglican bishops, clergy and laity. He will be sharing the platform with Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Holy See’s Council for Christian Unity.
Unless the springs at Lourdes work one of their rare miracles, Anglicans will emerge more aware than ever that innovations such as gay bishops, women bishops and women priests have ended all hopes of re-uniting the Anglicans and Catholic churches, split since the Reformation four centuries ago.
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