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Boston-area
priest leaves Episcopal Church, aligns with African
group

Boston-area
priest leaves Episcopal Church, aligns with African
group

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An Episcopal priest from a Boston suburb who has chosen to leave the church will travel to Nairobi next month to become a bishop of the Anglican Church of Kenya. The Reverend William L. Murdoch is part of a growing trend of priests and parishes that are leaving the Episcopal Church USA over its appointment of openly gay bishop V. Gene Robinson in New Hampshire.

An Episcopal priest from a Boston suburb who has chosen to leave the church will travel to Nairobi next month to become a bishop of the Anglican Church of Kenya, reports The Boston Globe.

The Reverend William L. Murdoch, rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in West Newbury, is part of a growing trend of priests and parishes that are leaving the Episcopal Church USA over its appointment of openly gay bishop V. Gene Robinson in New Hampshire.

"We feel the need to separate from the Episcopal Church because of the crisis brought about with the election of a noncelibate gay bishop," Murdoch told the Globe.

Many of the disaffected followers are affiliating with conservative churches in Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Uganda that are still a part of the global Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church is the U.S. branch.

The Advocatereported on this trend in an in-depth feature on Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, who recently installed a former Episcopal minister as head of a group of about 30 breakaway congregations in the United States. Bishop Martyn Minns of Virginia is now considered a "missionary bishop" of the Church of Nigeria.

Murdoch, 58, who visited Kenya for the first time last month to do a series of interviews, has been rector of All Saints since 1993.

According to the Globe, Murdoch and another American priest from Texas, the Reverend Will G. Atwood III, will be the first American Episcopalians to become bishops in the Kenyan province. In September a Virginia priest will be ordained as a bishop in Uganda. (The Advocate)

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