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Four Continuing Anglican Church bodies plan joint Synod in October

Four Continuing Anglican Church bodies plan joint Synod in October
They pledge to pursue full unity

By David W. Virtue, DD
www.virtueonline.org
January 17, 2017

Leaders of four Continuing Anglican Church bodies; ACA/ACC/APA/DHC will hold a joint synod when they meet in Atlanta, Georgia, October 2-6, 2017.

At the conclusion of the week it is the intention of the four churches to sign an agreement establishing full communion (communio in sacris) among the four bodies as well as a pledge to pursue in a determined and deliberate fashion increasingly full unity.

The Churches will also discuss common plans for mission and evangelism. Each Church will hold its own mandatory business meetings and Synods, but the four will join together throughout the joint synod for common worship and social occasions.

The four Churches and their episcopal leaders are the Anglican Church in America (Brian Marsh), the Anglican Catholic Church (Mark Haverland), the Anglican Province of America (Walter Grundorf), and the Diocese of the Holy Cross (Paul Hewett).

The four Churches have grown increasingly close in recent years, and look to the Congress of Saint Louis (1977) and The Affirmation of St. Louis as common historical and theological touchstones. The Churches are united by commitments to credal orthodoxy; to traditional Anglican worship, rooted in the historic Books of Common Prayer; to the three-fold Apostolic ministry of male bishops, priests, and deacons; and to traditional morality in issues affecting the sanctity of life and human sexuality.

While all four Churches seek closer relations with other ecclesial bodies with Anglican backgrounds, they differ from most of them in a firm belief that innovations since the mid-1970s such as modernist liturgies and the purported ordination of women to Holy Orders constitute unacceptable developments that remove Anglicans from the central tradition of the Undivided Church of the first millennium.

The four Churches claim about 300 congregations in the United States as well as larger memberships in Africa, South America, Oceania, Asia, and England.

The Joint Synods will meet at the Crowne Plaza Atlanta Perimeter at Ravinia in north Atlanta.

Signed

The Anglican Church in America (Brian Marsh)
The Anglican Catholic Church (Mark Haverland)
The Anglican Province of America (Walter Grundorf)
The Diocese of the Holy Cross (Paul Hewett)

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