South American synod to consider Uruguay’s request to secede: The Church of England Newspaper, June 17, 2011 p 9.

A special session of the general synod of the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone will be held in November in Asunción, Paraguay to respond to the Nov 12, 2010 vote by the Diocese of Uruguay to quit the province and seek alternative metropolitan oversight.

In a statement released on behalf of the province by the Bishop of Bolivia on June 12, the Rt. Rev. Frank Lyons reported the May 16-18 provincial executive council meeting agreed to bring forward by two years the next meeting of synod to respond to the diocese’s request.

In September 2010, the South American synod rejected a proposal put forward by the Diocese of Uruguay to allow dioceses to have a local option on women clergy.  While the resolution was passed in the lay and episcopal orders of synod, it failed to garner majority support from the clergy order.

Uruguay’s diocesan synod responded the following month, endorsing a resolution asking for a transfer out of the province within the year.

First published in The Church of England Newspaper.

Bishop Lyons reported the Southern Cone’s Provincial Executive Council sought to respond this request and “hold an extraordinary Synod next November with the request of Uruguay as its subject and allowing the Province to pastorally accompany the diocese.”

In other business, the executive council appointed the suffragan bishop of Northern Argentina to the post of diocesan bishop of Northern Argentina.  The Rt. Rev. Nicholas Drayson had served as associate vicar of Beverly Minister for eight years before taking up the suffragan post in the Argentine Chaco in 2008.

Bishop Drayson, who had served as a missionary translator to the Charote people in Northern Argentina before returning to the UK in 2000, succeeds Bishop Gregory Venables, who had been the Interim Bishop in charge of the Diocese of Northern Argentina.