Ohio: Former Episcopal breakaway parishes join new North American Anglican Church

by Patrick O'Donnell/Plain Dealer Reporter
December 04, 2008

Five local churches are joining the new North American Anglican Church, an attempt to create a more conservative rival to the Episcopal Church.

The local churches all left the Episcopal Diocese of Ohio after the national church's selection of a homosexual man as bishop in 2003 and started recognizing gay unions.

A representative of those churches and other dissenters joined leaders of four breakaway dioceses from across the country Wednesday night outside Chicago to unveil a constitution for the new umbrella church.

Organizers hope to become a full province of the Anglican Communion, a status that would make it a peer of the Episcopal Church in the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada. It is the first attempt to create a province defined by theological orientation, not by geography.

"It's something that has never happened before in the Anglican community," said the Rev. Roger Ames of St. Luke's Anglican Church in Fairlawn, who attended the event. "You will have a more orthodox group that will, in time, be recognized as an alternative to the United States Episcopal Church." the rest