Diocese, Congregation Announce Amicable Separation in Massachusetts
07/20/2007

The Diocese of Massachusetts recently announced an amicable separation agreement with the Rev. William Murdoch and the majority of members at All Saints’ Church, West Newbury, who have left The Episcopal Church for the Anglican Church of Kenya.

In a statement released July 17, Fr. Murdoch, who along with the Rev. Canon Bill Atwood will be consecrated Aug. 30 as bishops suffragan of the Kenyan church to oversee their American congregations, stated that the Rt. Rev. M. Thomas Shaw, SSJE, Bishop of Massachusetts, will permit the congregation to worship at All Saints’ until Sept. 2.

Fr. Murdoch, who has served as rector of All Saints’ since 1993 and as dean of the Anglican Communion Network’s New England Convocation since 2004, told The Living Church he saw the agreement as a “blessing” that would enable the congregation “to go forward with not quite so heavy a heart.”

The agreement to part without threat of litigation or acrimony was evidence that “godly Christian leadership can prevail when carried out in humility and under the cover of careful prayer,” he said.
the rest at The Living Church