Canada–two more parishes quit: CEN 3.20.09 p 9

Two British Columbia parishes have quit the Anglican Church of Canada and have affiliated with the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC). The votes by St Matthias in Victoria and St Mary’s Nanoose Bay increase the breakaway group’s ranks to 28 parishes served by three former Anglican Church of Canada bishops and 73 priests and deacons.

By a vote of 170 in favor and 10 opposed, St Matthias withdrew from the diocese on March 8 and joined the traditionalist breakaway group led by Bishop Don Harvey, the former Bishop of Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador. The congregation has left its property to the diocese and a remnant group and on March 15 began worshipping at a local community center.

The 200 members of St Mary’s Church on Feb 8 also voted to quit the diocese. However the rural congregation has stayed in its building and is engaged in litigation with the diocese over its ownership.

On March 12, Bishop James Cowan of British Columbia accused the breakaway group of being dishonest and divisive. Those who had quit had given “us assurances” that “they would never do what they have just done.” ANiC had also been dishonest in its “presentation of the facts” which had “allowed them to lead others to leave the diocese. I am shocked by this and see, under the guise of lofty intent and purity of motive, instead the subversion of the mission of the Church,” he said.

“I pray that all those who are acting in this way will repent and be restored to a place of peace somewhere in the greater Body of Christ on earth,” Bishop Cowan wrote.

However, Bishop Harvey said he was “delighted to welcome” the congregations. “By aligning with the Anglican Network in Canada, they join a growing movement of Anglicans throughout North America seeking to remain in the mainstream of global and historic Anglicanism.”