A congregation that claims over 1,000 parishioners and deep roots to its
founding in 1745, All Saints officially amended its charter to reflect a
revised statement of purpose, as well as its official affiliation. The vote
affirmed the unanimous decision of the church’s vestry, made in October. The
church joins nine international Anglican provinces that recently severed
ties to the ECUSA—an institution whose revisionist and liberal actions are
increasingly placing it at odds with much of the rest of the Anglican Communion.

On two separate ballots, those present voted overwhelmingly to declare a new
identity and affiliation as a church. On the first, which called for all
references to the Episcopal Church to be removed from All Saints’ charter,
the vote was 464 in favor, 42 against, and 1 abstention. On the second
ballot, nearly 94% of those present voted to remove All Saints from the
Episcopal Church and transfer its canonical residence to another Province
within the Anglican Communion.

That “other Province” will most likely be the Province of Rwanda, and its
missionary movement in this country, the Anglican Mission in America. That
decision will be finalized at a parish meeting later this month. As people
were leaving the meeting, they had opportunity to transfer their letters of
membership individually, and the response was overwhelming.

All Saints’ Rector Emeritus, the Rt. Rev. Charles Murphy, addressed the
gathering before deliberations began. He made it clear that it was not a
regular parish business meeting, but a special meeting of the corporation
concerned with amending the church’s official charter, adopted in 1902. His
comments embraced the following points:

*The Episcopal Church USA of today is very different from the Protestant
Episcopal Church of 1902 under which the original charter was drafted;
*The Episcopal Church has produced, by its actions, a major realignment in
the Anglican Communion whereby two-thirds of the world’s Anglicans are now
in a state of broken or impaired communion with ECUSA;
*All Saints Church has resisted the revisions of the Episcopal Church for
years, working for renewal and change from within;
*The Episcopal Church has, in effect, abandoned the Faith and Order of the
“One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church”;
*There are now two strategies for addressing the international crisis:
either to remain “inside” the ECUSA and become part of an orthodox ghetto,
or move “outside” in order to come out from under coercive structures and
canons, which is the strategy of the Anglican Mission in America.

The members of All Saints obviously agreed with their longtime leader,
voting to follow an outside strategy from this point on.

All Saints and the Diocese of South Carolina have had strained relations for
the last three years, due to actions on the part of the Diocese to claim
interest in the church’s property, refusal of the Diocese to allow All
Saints to vote at recent conventions, and recent efforts on the part of the
bishop, Ed Salmon, to take over control of the parish. South Carolina’s
Judge Breeden has twice ruled that the Diocese has no interest in the
property, which was deeded many years before the Episcopal Church even
existed. All Saints will continue to worship in their current facilities,
even as the diocese continues its efforts to remove them through the courts.

Overall, it was a ‘peaceful’ meeting where a few people spoke on each side
of the issues, with one person observing that ‘the church was ready for this
moment.’ In a recent statement, the leadership of All Saints reasserted its
commitment to its members, the inhabitants of Waccamaw Neck Region, the
worldwide Anglican Communion, and Christ’s Great Commission to His Church.