Maryland Won’t Recognize Ordination
11/15/2005

The “irregular” ordination of the Rev. Eliot Weeks in Pittsburgh on Nov. 12 to serve as an Anglican campus minister at Maryland’s Towson University has no connection with the Episcopal Church, according to the Bishop of Maryland, the Rt. Rev. Robert W. Ihloff, who wrote to the clergy of the diocese the following day.

Fr. Weeks, a deacon licensed in the Diocese of Pittsburgh, was ordained priest by the Rt. Rev. Frank Lyons, Bishop of Bolivia in the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone. The Diocese of Maryland had been advertising for a part-time campus minister. Fr. Weeks applied for the position, but was rejected, Bishop Ihloff said.

“Our action was based on his unwillingness to work under the direction of our Campus Ministry Board, and we were not impressed with his credentials,” he wrote. “Obviously our judgment has proven sound.”

Because the new church plant is not an Episcopal parish, Bishop Ihloff said he could not intervene. He criticized those who took part. The rest