A powerful
Anglican leader from Nigeria is strengthening the network of
U.S. parishes he formed as a conservative alternative to the
liberal-leaning Episcopal Church.
Archbishop Peter
Akinola of the Anglican Church of Nigeria plans to lead
a ceremony Saturday at a nondenominational chapel in
Woodbridge, Va., where he'll install Martyn Minns, a
former Episcopal clergyman, as bishop and U.S. leader
of Akinola's Convocation of Anglicans in North America.
The installation
is occurring as the world Anglican Communion,
represented in the United States by the Episcopal
Church, is on the brink of breaking apart. Anglican
rifts over whether homosexuality is biblically
acceptable broke wide open in 2003 when the Episcopalians
consecrated the first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of
New Hampshire.
Anglican leaders
have given the U.S. denomination until September 30 to
step back from its support of gays or risk losing its full
membership in the 77 million-member Anglican
fellowship.
Episcopal
presiding bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has ''strongly
urged'' Akinola not to enter the United States to install
Minns. In a letter to him this week, she said his
visit would violate the Anglican tradition that
national church leaders, called primates, only minister to
churches within their own provinces.
Akinola responded
Wednesday that ''the usual protocol and permissions are
no longer applicable'' because of what he called the
''unbiblical agenda'' of the U.S. church.
He said he
created CANA ''to provide a safe place for those who wish to
remain faithful Anglicans but can no longer do so within the
Episcopal Church as it is currently being led.''
Minns said there
was an urgent need now to create a place for theological
conservatives, who are a minority in the 2.3
million-member Episcopal Church.
''For us, we felt
that waiting for one more meeting and one more
deadline--too many folks were getting lost in the
middle, so for us, it was time to move on,'' Minns
said in a teleconference with reporters Thursday.
The convocation
started in December when two of the most prominent and
conservative parishes in the Episcopal diocese of
Virginia--Truro Church in Fairfax, which Minns
led, and the Falls Church in Falls Church--broke
from the U.S. denomination and joined the network.
Several smaller
Virginia parishes followed suit. The diocese and the
breakaway parishioners are now fighting in court over who
owns the properties, which are worth tens of millions
of dollars.
Minns said that
about 30 parishes and 50 clergy have joined the breakaway
group, which includes churches for Nigerians living in the
United States. He said most of the churches are in
northern Virginia, with other parishes in Los Angeles,
Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, and New York.
Episcopal bishop
Peter Lee of Virginia, in a letter to his diocese, said
Akinola's visit ''will serve only to inflame the differences
we have been struggling with.''
''There are
impatient forces seeking to provoke conflict,'' Lee wrote,
''when humility, respect, and patience are in order.'' (AP)
