Conger

First published in The Church of England Newspaper.   The Anglican Bishop of Toronto has been elected metropolitan archbishop of the ecclesiastical province of Ontario. Bishop Colin Johnson was elected on the second ballot at the Oct 15 provincial synod held in Cochrane, Ontario. He is the fourth metropolitan archbishop elected in the Anglican Church of Canada this year. On Sept 25 the ecclesiastical province of British Columbia and Yukon elected the Bishop of Kootenay, the Rt Rev John Privett as archbishop of the western Canadian province. This follows upon the Sept 11 election of the Bishop of Fredericton, the Rt Rev Claude Miller as Archbishop of the ecclesiastical province of Canada, and the June 11 election of the Bishop of Keewatin, the Rt Rev David Ashdown as Archbishop of the Province of Rupert’s Land.

Archbishop Johnson succeeds Archbishop Caleb Lawrence, the Bishop of Moonsonee whose term as metropolitan of the province which included the dioceses of Moosonee, Algoma, Ontario, Ottawa, Toronto, Niagara and Huron, ends in October.

Archbishop Johnson was educated at the University of Western Ontario and received his ministerial training at Trinity College, Toronto. Ordained deacon in 1977 and priest in 1978 by the Bishop of Toronto, Archbishop Johnson served in parish ministry from 1977 to 1992 when joined the staff of the Bishop of Toronto as his Executive Assistant. In 1994 he was appointed Archdeacon of York, and elected area-bishop of Trent-Durham in the diocese in 2003.   In 2003 he was elected diocesan bishop.

“I feel very honoured and apprehensive in some ways about the workload, but challenged by the position and looking forward to serving,” Archbishop Johnson told the Anglican Journal, adding that he hoped as archbishop he would be a provincial voice calling for the government to combat poverty and social inequality.

First published in The Church of England Newspaper. Three metropolitan archbishops have been elected to serve the Anglican Church of Canada. On Sept 25 the ecclesiastical province of British Columbia and Yukon elected the Bishop of Kootenay, the Rt Rev John Privett as archbishop of the western Canadian province. This follows upon the Sept 11 election of the Bishop of Fredericton, the Rt Rev Claude Miller as Archbishop of the ecclesiastical province of Canada, and the June 11 election of the Bishop of Keewatin, the Rt Rev David Ashdown as Archbishop of the Province of Rupert’s Land.

This follows upon the Sept 11 election of the Bishop of Fredericton, the Rt Rev Claude Miller as Archbishop of the ecclesiastical province of Canada, and the June 11 election of the Bishop of Keewatin, the Rt Rev David Ashdown as Archbishop of the Province of Rupert’s Land.

At 53, Archbishop Privett becomes the youngest of Canada’s four metropolitan archbishops: the Anglican Church of Canada is divided into four ecclesiastical provinces: Canada, Ontario, Rupert’s Land, British Columbia and the Yukon, and is overseen by the Primate, Archbishop Fred Hiltz.

Archbishop Privett becomes the 11th metropolitan of British Columbia and Yukon, which is comprised of the dioceses of British Columbia, Caledonia, New Westminster, Yukon, Kootenay and the Anglican Parishes of the Central Interior. Educated at the University of Saskatchewan, Archbishop Privett trained for the ministry at the College of Emmanuel and St Chad, Saskatoon, and earned graduate degrees from the University of Alberta and Seabury-Western Theological Seminary in the United States. He was ordained to the diaconate in 1981 and the priesthood in 1982 in the Diocese of Edmonton and elected Bishop of Kootenay in 2005.

Archbishop Miller was elected the 22nd Metropolitan of the province of Canada at the provincial synod held Sept 10 to 13 in Gander, Newfoundland. The province along Canada’s Atlantic coast includes the dioceses of Montreal, Quebec, Fredericton, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, Western Newfoundland, Central Newfoundland and Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador. A second career priest, Archbishop Miller was a civil engineer for 25 years, before he was ordained in 1989 in Fredericton, and was elected was bishop of the diocese in 2003, and was elected archbishop on the first ballot.

On June 11 the Province of Rupert’s Land, which stretches across the Canadian prairie and north to the Arctic elected Bishop David Ashdown of Keewatin at the provincial synod meeting at Holy Cross Church in Calgary.

Archbishop Ashdown was elected on the third ballot, and will be metropolitan archbishop for the dioceses of Keewatin, Rupert’s Land, Brandon, the Arctic, Qu’appelle, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Athabasca, Edmonton and Calgary.

Educated at the University of Saskatchewan, Archbishop Ashdown trained for the ministry at the College of Emmanuel and St Chad and was ordained priest in 1978. He served in the Diocese of Qu’Appelle until 1992, and as Archdeacon of Athabasca until 1999, and then as Archdeacon of Keewatin from 1999 to 2001, when he was elected bishop.

A parish in the Diocese of Huron has voted to quit the Anglican Church of Canada and realign with the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) under the oversight of the Province of the Southern Cone. The secession of the 11th Canadian parish for South America adds further heat to the Anglican fire, evaporating the Archbishop of Canterbury’s already slim hopes that the January primates meeting in London would avoid controversy.

At a Sept 28 parish meeting, the congregation of St. Aidan’s Church in Windsor Ontario voted unanimously to come under the oversight of the moderator of ANiC, Bishop Donald Harvey. Of the congregations 250 eligible votes, 109 attended the parish meeting and all voted to secede.

“We are delighted to welcome the people of St Aidan’s into a faithfully Anglican and unabashedly Christian organization,” said the Ven. Charlie Masters, executive archdeacon of ANiC. “They join a growing movement of North American Anglicans seeking to remain in full communion with the global Anglican Church,” he said.
The Bishop of Huron, the Rt. Rev. Bruce Howe retired on Sept 1, and the see is currently vacant. The diocese’s suffragan bishop, the Rt. Rev. Robert Bennett, however, claimed the split had been motivated by disputes over same-sex marriage. “I do not accept this decision as appropriate and the leadership of this diocese will be meeting to further address this situation,” he said in a news release.
In a statement announcing the vote, ANiC said St Aidan’s had “acted because they are determined to remain biblically faithful, true to historic Christian orthodoxy and long-standing Anglican teaching.”

The Anglican Church of Canada had abandoned “mainstream Anglican teaching and doctrine, particularly in relation to the authority of the Bible,” ANiC said, adding that Presiding Bishop Gregory Venables of Argentina had taken the parish on board in response to the needs of “biblically faithful Canadian Anglicans for spiritual protection and care on an emergency and interim basis – pending a resolution to the crises in the worldwide Anglican Communion.”

On Sept 10 Anglican Journal reported that the Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, Archbishop Fred Hiltz had asked the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams to convene a meeting of the Primates of Brazil, the US and Canada with Bishop Venables.

The three had “repeatedly asked” Bishop Venables to “stop meddling in the internal affairs of their provinces,” the Anglican Journal said, adding that Bishop Venables had “of his own accord, been providing episcopal oversight to churches that are in serious theological dispute with their respective provinces.”

Bishop Venables told the Living Church magazine the request to hold a meeting, made through the press seemed “more like a publicity stunt than a serious desire for dialogue.”

On the second to last day of the Lambeth Conference, Archbishop Hiltz and US Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori proposed a meeting with Bishop Venables and Dr. Williams over his support for ANiC and the Diocese of San Joaquin. However, Bishop Venables declined the invitation and left the conference a day early.

“What more is there to discuss?” Bishop Venables said. At Lambeth he had spoken with the Canadian primate about these issues. “I told him why I was doing this and he told me how he felt about it,” he said. “Boundary crossing is not the primary issue. It is a secondary issue resulting from the communion-splitting action of blessing sexual sin by the U.S. and Canadian churches.”

The Anglican Church of Canada’s united front against the breakaway congregations and clergy of the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) received a major blow last week after a diocesan synod voted to recognize the secessions.

“All of these churches have by their decisions stayed within the Anglican Communion,” the synod of the Diocese of Athabasca said on April 26, disputing assertions made by Bishop Michael Ingham of New Westminster and other Canadian bishops that by quitting the Canadian Church the secessionists were no longer Anglicans.

The Northern Alberta-based diocese adopted a series of resolutions affirming that it was in “full communion” with ANiC and its sponsor, the Province of the Southern Cone.

The diocese also expressed “its dismay” at the attempts by several bishops to respond to the secessions by turning to the civil courts. “By resorting to the civil courts so readily, the bishops of those dioceses where there are dissident parishes and clergy have displayed so visibly that, to them, the issue is power, not the will of God,” synod said, according to a statement posted on the diocesan website.

Archbishop John Clarke, metropolitan archbishop of Rupert’s Land, and Bishop of Athabasca stated the diocese’s intent was to remain “in communion with as wide a range of our brothers and sisters in Christ as is possible.”

The vote was not a step towards quitting the Canadian Church, he noted, writing “be assured that the Diocese of Athabasca is as deeply committed as ever to the Anglican Church of Canada and to the Anglican Communion.”

However, Archbishop Clarke criticized the push towards permitting same-sex blessings in the Canadian Church, expressing his disappointment with dioceses who abused the language of the church’s canons and prayer book to achieve their political ends.

“We believe that we are bound to adhere to the decisions of General Synod, not only in the letter but also in the spirit,” he said. “We understand the decision of General Synod 2007 not to endorse the right of dioceses to bless same-gender unions as meaning that it was the mind of General Synod that we should not proceed at this time.”

The Canadian House of Bishops has rebuffed a request from the breakaway Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) to negotiate a settlement of property disputes, saying the national church has no power to act.

Property issues “are always resolved within dioceses” Archbishop Fred Hiltz said following the April 15-18 meeting in Niagara Falls, Ontario. “I don’t hold any title to property. General Synod doesn’t hold any title to property,” explained the Canadian church leader.

Bishop Don Harvey of ANiC said he was disappointed the bishops would chose litigation over dialogue, but was not surprised. “I had hoped the Primate would have attempted to facilitate negotiations between the dioceses and the Anglican Network parishes.” Four parishes in British Columbia and Ontario are currently in court with their dioceses, and more lawsuits are expected from dioceses seeking to regain control of breakaway congregations.

On April 11, Bishop Harvey wrote Archbishop Hiltz seeking a meeting with national church leaders and bishops “to discuss the possibility of pursuing alternate dispute resolution mechanisms (i.e. negotiation, mediation or arbitration) to address the outstanding issues”

“It would be much better for everyone concerned if we could work out some interim arrangements between ourselves without the necessity of resorting to the civil courts,” he said.

However, Archbishop Hiltz said it was too late. “Our hope has been that we would be able to resolve our differences outside of court,” Archbishop Hiltz told the Anglican Journal, however once dioceses began suing clergy and congregations, it altered the equation. “We can’t be weighing in once the processes are started,” he said.

In other business, the House of Bishops meeting held closed door discussions on the church’s divisions over homosexuality. At the end of their meeting, the bishops released a statement affirming their “shared episcopal ministry” scheme that would allow alternative pastoral oversight for traditionalists at odds with liberal bishops.

Conservative Canadian bishops told the Anglican Journal they would “continue to try to take a stand. What people mean is they want to know orthodox bishops will faithfully represent orthodox positions on the faith both in what we say in this house and how we vote and also when we are back home in our own dioceses.”

Suffragan Bishop Larry Robertson of the Arctic explained that conservative bishops would continue to witness to the faith within the structures of the Anglican Church of Canada. ” If I believe homosexual behaviour is wrong and that any form of sin leads us away from God, then the loving, caring pastoral way is to say ‘You have to change your ways.’ The pastoral way is to make a person whole.”

The Bishop of New Westminster has charged theologian JI Packer with abandoning the doctrine and discipline of the Anglican Church of Canada.

Dr. Packer, along with the other clergy of St. John’s Shaughnessy Anglican Church in Vancouver, was served with a “Notice of Presumption of Abandonment of the Exercise of the Ministry” by Bishop Michael Ingham on Feb 21.

They were accused of having “publicly renounced the doctrine and discipline of the Anglican Church of Canada,” and for having sought admission “into another religious body.”

Dr. Packer has been a critic of the innovations of doctrine and discipline within the Anglican Church of Canada and has lent his support to the secession vote. Unless he recants or disputes these actions, Bishop Ingham will depose him from the ministry of the Anglican Church on April 21.

The threat from Bishop Ingham comes in the wake of the Feb 13 vote by the parish to quit the Anglican Church of Canada and to affiliate with the Anglican Network in Canada under the oversight of the Province of the Southern Cone.

An honorary assistant at St. John’s for the past 20 years, the 82-year old theologian is generally held to be one of the leading evangelical scholars within the Anglican tradition and was labeled a “doctrinal Solomon” by Time Magazine.

Author of “Knowing God,” Dr Packer was educated at Wycliffe Hall and served his curacy at Harborne Heath in Birmingham. From 1955-1961 he served as a lecturer at Tyndale Hall, Bristol, as Librarian then Principal at Latimer House, Oxford, from 1961-1969, Principal of Tyndale Hall in 1970, and Assoc. Principal of Trinity College, Bristol from 1971 to 1979 before joining the faculty of Regent College, Vancouver where he currently serves as Professor of Theology.

Lawyers for ANiC are viewing the notice of presumption of abandonment of communion and are preparing a response, a spokesman said.

Under Canadian Canon XIX, if Bishop Ingham deposes him for abandonment, Dr. Packer may appeal the ruling to the Metropolitan of British Columbia and the Yukon, Archbishop Terry Buckle, who “shall attempt to mediate between the parties” and if unsuccessful refer the matter to the provincial ecclesiastical court for review.

The Primate of Canada has written a pastoral letter to the Church urging calm in the wake of over a dozen parish defections to the Province of the Southern Cone.

On Feb 28, Archbishop Fred Hiltz called the departures a “fracture in the body of Christ.”

While there had been a “huge amount of attention is given to those who are considering leaving the Anglican Church of Canada, there are a host of other people who continue to struggle over issues of sexuality and unity. They do that from both very conservative perspectives and very liberal perspectives, but it is so clear that they intend to remain loyal members of the Anglican Church of Canada.”

The capacity for a “breadth of theological perspective” was part of the Anglican “heritage that we continue to cherish, Archbishop Hiltz said.

However, defections were been driven by a desire to remain Anglican, the executive director of the Anglican Network in Canada tells The Church of England Newspaper.

“If we did not offer them an option by the end of the year,” Cheryl Chang told the CEN, many said the “would leave Anglicanism altogether.”

The timing of the parish secessions was dictated by the Canadian church’s practice of holding its annual meetings in February. The “congregations are taking this step now” of secession “because when the offer of Adequate Episcopal Oversight became available at the end of November” from the South American church “the parishes were asked to go through a period of discernment with their congregations to discuss the implications of the offer before taking such a vote.”

ANiC asked “all the parishes vote in this window of time so that we could stand together, to build the church and defend our ministry at the same time,” she explained.

“We had been contacted by many faithful Canadian Anglicans who were in distress after the General Synod in June, where they voted that same sex blessings were “not in conflict with” the core doctrine of the church,” Mrs. Chang said.

Traditionalists have “watched the Niagara, Ottawa and Montreal dioceses proceed to follow the diocese of New Westminster, with the support of the Primate and the [church] hierarchy” alter the Church’s traditional doctrine and disciple. The Southern Cone had offered traditionalists a “safe haven for these faithful people in order to help them remain fully Anglican and continue their orthodox Anglican witness.”

Protestations by Archbishop Fred Hiltz that the ‘Shared Episcopal Ministry’ scheme crafted by the Canadian House of Bishops would provide adequate protections for traditionalists were not persuasive Mrs. Chang said.

The Shared Episcopal Ministry programme envisioned the Church as a static entity that would only decline. It “does not allow for church planting,” allow congregations to hire new priests, and keeps the existing churches under the thumb of a “hostile bishop.”

“It forces congregations to financially support and have partnership with a church that is teaching a different gospel and that is in a broken relationship with the global Anglican Communion,” Mrs. Chang said.

Three more Canadian congregations have quit the Anglican Church of Canada to align with the Province of the Southern Cone following parish meetings this past weekend.

Canada’s largest Chinese Anglican congregation, Church of the Good Shepherd in Vancouver, along with St. Matthias & St Luke in Vancouver quit the diocese of New Westminster, with only one parishioner among the two congregations voting to remain under the oversight of Bishop Michael Ingham.

The Church of the Good Shepherd in St. Catharines, Ontario also voted to secede on Feb 24, giving the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) 15 congregations under the oversight of Bishops Don Harvey and Malcolm Harding.

Responses to the secessions have been mixed.  Bishop Michael Ingham of New Westminster issued a “notice of presumption of abandonment of the exercise of ministry” to his breakaway clergy, giving them two months to recant.  Should the clergy not back down, under canon law Bishop Ingham may declare the priests had abandoned the ministry of the Anglican Church of Canada.

The Diocese of British Columbia, however, stepped back from a confrontation with its breakaway congregation.  In a letter to the clergy of St. Mary’s of the Incarnation in the Victoria suburb of Metchosin, Archdeacon Bruce Bryant-Scott suspended an inhibition issued against the clergy for 12 days, allowing them the opportunity to reconsider their actions.

On Feb 20 the Diocese of Niagara filed suit against its departing congregations, seeking to gain control of the parish property and bank accounts.

The secession of 8 Canadian congregations to the Province of the Southern Cone has drawn mixed reactions from conservative church leaders in Canada.

While supporters of the breakaway group believe secession will strengthen the conservative movement in Canada, others disagree saying they are not ready to quit the Church.  However, “most orthodox Anglicans are dismayed that this conflict has been allowed to escalate to this point,” Bishop Anthony Burton of Saskatchewan told The Church of England Newspaper.

Canada’s largest Anglican parish was the first to go.  On Feb. 13, St. John’s Shaughnessy in Vancouver voted 475 to 11 to quit the Diocese of New Westminster and accept the oversight of Bishop Donald Harvey and the Province of the Southern Cone.

Over the weekend seven more parishes from the dioceses of British Columbia, New Westminster, Ottawa, Toronto and Niagara joined St John’s in defecting to the Southern Cone.

A further five may follow by the end of the month as Canadian parishes are required to hold their annual parochial meeting by the end of February.  Should a parish wish to secede at any other time of year, it must call a special parish meeting, giving proper notice to the congregation and the diocese.

The Anglican Network in Canada, (ANiC)—the ecclesial body overseeing the breakaway parishes—stated the parishes were motivated by concern over what “is happening in the Anglican Church of Canada.”

The secession was a salvation issue.  The Canadian Church was rewriting its “teaching on fundamental, historic Christian teaching, such as the authority of the Bible and salvation through Jesus Christ alone,” they said.

In a pastoral letter released the same day as the St. John’s vote, Canadian Primate Fred Hiltz said there was no need for congregations to break away.  The House of Bishops’ “Shared Episcopal Ministry” plan provided for congregations in “conscientious disagreement with the Bishop and Synod over the matter of the blessing of same sex unions” to receive adequate oversight from conservatives, he said.

However, if congregations did leave there would be legal and canonical repercussions.

Those who “leave the Church” cannot “take property and other assets with them,” he noted.  “My hope is that no parish will take action that would compel parish or diocesan leaders to resolve property disputes in the civil courts,” Archbishop Hiltz said.

Diocesan bishops also issued pastoral letters counseling against schism.  On Feb 15 the Bishop of British Columbia suspended the clergy of one parish the day before their congregation was scheduled to vote.

Bishop James Cowan told the clergy of St Mary of the Incarnation in Victoria
“you may not function as an ordained priest,” nor were they to “discuss this matter” with their parishioners, and “Further, I direct that you stay away from the premises of the parish.”

Archbishop Hiltz’ protestations of proper pastoral provisions were not persuasive, ANiC said.  It had sought “appropriate spiritual care and oversight for parishes like these which remain faithful to orthodox Anglican teaching, – but to no avail.”

ANiC’s Bishop Donald Harvey welcomed the vote.  “St John’s has shown true leadership both now and over the past difficult years,” he said.  “I look forward to ministering with them and moving forward together in mission and in full communion with the tens of millions of orthodox Anglicans worldwide who have been so supportive of us.”

Retired Sydney Bishop Ken Short said the vote by the Vancouver congregations led by his son David Short “shows the value of the strength of biblical preaching at St John’s over the past few decades, and because of that people are strongly standing for what the word of God says.”

However, the Dean Peter Elliot of Vancouver, a spokesman for the Diocese of New Westminster, told The Church of England Newspaper he was “saddened” by the vote as it was “unnecessary.”

The Anglican Church of Canada had been “deeply involved” in the “Windsor Report process”, Dean Elliot said, and remained engaged in a conversation over the developing doctrine and discipline of the Church.

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Panel of Reference had commended the Canadian Church’s Shared Episcopal Ministry programme to the wider Communion as a viable alternative form of episcopal oversight, he observed.  However, a “small group did not find it persuasive.”

Bishop Burton said he understood the “frustration” felt by the ANiC churches, but for “a variety of conscientious reasons,” could not follow them out of the Church.

“The great majority of orthodox Canadian Anglicans think that the best course of action is to work for renewal within the Church rather than giving up on it, and patiently to work through the Windsor process,” he explained.