Episcopal Church News

Leaving the Episcopal Church was not something the Rev. Christopher Waters planned; it was a simple matter of obedience, he said this week.

Waters is pastor of the Anglican Church of St. Paul, one of two Tulsa-area churches that are part of a new conservative denomination formed last week. It is composed of churches and people who broke away from the Episcopal Church over differences about the authority of Scripture, gay clergy and other issues ...

Episcopal bishops from the six states that have legalized same-sex marriage are requesting permission to adapt their church's venerable prayer book for use at same-sex weddings.

The proposal presents a new challenge to the Episcopal Church as it seeks to balance respect for gay rights with fellow Anglicans' widespread condemnation of homosexuality ...

The House of Deputies will be asked to consider meeting in two unusual sessions early in the 76th General Convention July 8-17 to discuss Resolution B033 , which was adopted during an extraordinary session of its own on the final day of the 75th General Convention in 2006 ...

For her untiring work with local Indian communities throughout the 1940s and beyond, the deaconess will be considered for sainthood at an upcoming Episcopal convention ...

After the Anglican Church in North America's momentous inaugural gathering , the verdict is out on whether the issue of women's ordination will inhibit the budding alliance from moving forward ...

Last week's birth of a new Anglican province in the dusty plains of north-central Texas left the question of women's ordination dangling in the air ...

General Convention meets July 8-17 in Anaheim, California, and Williams will be present July 7-9. The session is not an official convention meeting and thus there has been no announcement of the plans.

A new $3.65 million chapel that's designed to be big enough to accommodate a growing group of worshippers - including those with special needs - has opened at the Episcopal Church Home in Graymoor-Devondale. An overflow crowd of residents, family members, staff, donors and representatives of other Episcopal churches attended an elaborate ...

Arguably the Episcopal and Methodist Churches have been America's historically most influential. Numerous American elites, including many of the Founders, were and are Episcopalian, making it often the de facto "established" church ...

Like other Mainline denominations, Episcopal and Methodist seminaries succumbed to theological liberalism early in the 20th century, reaching radical crescendos in the 1960s, when both churches began numerically to decline, a decline that continues until this day ...

... After listening to an update on his love life, I asked my old friend whether he was going to church. He said he wasn’t going anymore. He had left his previous church because they refused to allow gay deacons. He said he and his boyfriend needed a church that is more tolerant. I’m going to recommend that he give The Episcopal Church of the Advocate in Carrboro, North Carolina a try.

Until a couple of days ago, the Advocate website (www.ouradvocate.org) had a list of the members of its vestry, which included Frank Lombard. But after Lombard was arrested for allegedly trying to peddle his five year old adopted son on the internet – for virtually unlimited sexual abuse by a stranger – the Advocate updated its site ...

As the Episcopal Church prepares to hold its triennial convention in Anaheim next month, most of the media focus has been on continuing divisions over the role of gays and lesbians in the church.

Delegates are expected to vote whether to develop formal marriage rites or blessings for same-sex couples, and on reversing a 2006 moratorium on the consecration of bishops who are in same-sex relationships.

Yet, in most Episcopal parishes throughout the Inland area, the divisions over homosexuality rarely come up in conversation, priests and parishioners said ...

The controversy over the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center in Roxbury Crossing has posed one of the biggest challenges to interfaith relations in Boston in years, and the tension was readily on display during the Friday morning opening ceremonies for the new mosque ...

About 20 members of Columbia Hope Episcopal Church met Sunday afternoon to discuss racism within the denomination as well as hopes to diversify the church ...

Hundreds of conservative parishes formerly associated with the Episcopal Church are forming the Anglican Church in North America ...

Conservative Anglicans disenchanted with the liberal drift in their U.S. and Canadian churches say they are confident that a new church body started this week will one day gain a seat in the worldwide Anglican Communion.

The new Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) has been organized, its leaders say, as an alternative for Anglicans who disagree with the theology of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada ...

DUNDAS — Sitting inside the Church of the Holy Cross, the smell of the Episcopal church’s history hangs in the air above the 140-year-old pews. Light pours in through the stained glass windows, illuminating the sanctuary. While the church is filled with history and church relics more than a century old, it is the memories of loyal congregants that truly bring the spirit of the church to life.

Sunday, nearly 140 years after the church was built and consecrated in 1870, Holy Cross will hold its final service. Church vestry voted on May 17 to terminate its status as a parish. Though the decision was difficult for many of the vestry members to make, they deemed it necessary due to the 60-member congregation’s dwindling budget ...

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. -- St. James Anglican Church, which is at the center of a nationally publicized church property dispute with The Episcopal Church, today will file a petition for writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court of the United States. St. James is asking the Court to overturn a prior decision of the California Supreme Court, which conferred a special power on certain religious denominations to take property they do not own simply by passing an internal “rule.”

The petition asks the Supreme Court to decide whether, under the U.S. Constitution, certain religious denominations can disregard the normal rules of property ownership that apply to everyone else ...

With a promise to leave the "war" in the past, the Rev. Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh on Wednesday became the first archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America, established after a break with the US Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada over the issue of ordaining gays as priests ...

The three-year, $162-million draft budget submitted by Executive Council will likely be reduced by the Joint Standing Committee on Program, Budget and Finance before it is submitted for approval to General Convention on July 15, according to Pan Adams-McCaslin, PB&F chairwoman.

In an interview with Episcopal News Service (ENS) June 24, Ms. McCaslin said income could be $9 million less than previously estimated ...

Two Tulsa-area ministers are elated about the historic creation of the Anglican Church in North America, a denomination formed by conservative churches and members who left the Episcopal Church.

Six years after the Episcopal Church consecrated a gay bishop, setting off a firestorm of protests, delegates meeting in Bedford, Texas, this week officially constituted the new Anglican church with 700 congregations and 100,000 members ...