Anglican Episcopal Church
Encyclopedia
The Anglican Episcopal Church (AEC) is a Continuing Anglican church
Continuing Anglican Movement
The term Continuing Anglican movement refers to a number of churches in various countries that have been formed outside of the Anglican Communion. These churches generally believe that "traditional" forms of Anglican faith and worship have been unacceptably revised or abandoned within some...

 consisting of parishes in California, Arizona, Nevada, and Florida served by two bishops and 18 other clergy. The AEC was founded at St. George's Anglican Church in Ventura, California
Ventura, California
Ventura is the county seat of Ventura County, California, United States, incorporated in 1866. The population was 106,433 at the 2010 census, up from 100,916 at the 2000 census. Ventura is accessible via U.S...

.

The Anglican Episcopal Church is an Anglican jurisdiction that describes its faith as being based on the 1928 Book of Common Prayer
Book of Common Prayer
The Book of Common Prayer is the short title of a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion, as well as by the Continuing Anglican, "Anglican realignment" and other Anglican churches. The original book, published in 1549 , in the reign of Edward VI, was a product of the English...

 and the Authorized Version of the Bible.
The Thirty-nine Articles
Thirty-Nine Articles
The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion are the historically defining statements of doctrines of the Anglican church with respect to the controversies of the English Reformation. First established in 1563, the articles served to define the doctrine of the nascent Church of England as it related to...

 of Religion are accepted as authoritative.

This church body is not to be confused with the Anglican Episcopal Church of North America which was founded in 1972 by Bishop Walter Hollis Adams (1907 to 1991), with the Anglican Episcopal Church, Celtic Rite which was founded in 1993 by Bishop Robert Harold Hawn (1928 to 1999), or with the Anglican Episcopal Church International which was founded by Bishop Norman S. Dutton in 2008.

History

The Anglican Episcopal Church's first bishop was the Rt. Rev. Reginald Hammond (1918 to 2004). Bishop Hammond was consecrated for the Anglican Episcopal Church on 20 April 2000 by the Rt. Rev. Robert J. Godfrey
Robert J. Godfrey
Robert J. Godfrey was the third Presiding Bishop of the Anglican Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Archbishop of the Orthodox Anglican Communion, and the President of Cranmer Seminary. Significantly, during his tenure as bishop Godfrey legally changed the name of the jurisdiction to the"Episcopal...

, a former presiding bishop of the Anglican Orthodox Church
Orthodox Anglican Church
The Orthodox Anglican Church is the American branch of the Orthodox Anglican Communion. It is now considered to be part of the Continuing Anglican movement, although the church predates the Continuing Church movement and was actively opposed to Continuing Anglicanism when it developed during the...

. The co-consecrators were: the Rt. Rev. Richard Boyce of the Anglican Province of America
Anglican Province of America
The Anglican Province of America is one of a number of "Continuing" Anglican churches in the United States. This church considers the Episcopal Church in the USA to be heretical, thus it maintains a church separate from that body in order to follow what it considers to be a truly Christian and...

 and the Rt. Rev. Scott McLaughlin, the Rt. Rev. Hesbon Njera, and the Rt. Rev. Thomas Shank, all of the Orthodox Anglican Church
Orthodox Anglican Church
The Orthodox Anglican Church is the American branch of the Orthodox Anglican Communion. It is now considered to be part of the Continuing Anglican movement, although the church predates the Continuing Church movement and was actively opposed to Continuing Anglicanism when it developed during the...

. Following Bishop Hammond's death on 5 May 2004, the church was reduced from three parishes to the one parish in Ventura which then voted to ask for the episcopal oversight of two bishops of the Anglican Diocese of the Good Shepherd: the Rt. Rev. Melvin Pickering and the Rt. Rev. George Connor.

In 2006, St. George's withdrew from its association with the Diocese of the Good Shepherd along with several other parishes. Delegates to an October 2006 General Convention which had been called for the purpose of re-establishing the Anglican Episcopal Church elected Bishop Conner to be its presiding bishop. Canon David Pressey was elected by the AEC Convention of 2008 to be a suffragan bishop. He was consecrated on 22 November 2008.

In 2008, the Anglican Episcopal Church joined with the Diocese of the Great Lakes
Diocese of the Great Lakes
The Diocese of the Great Lakes is a Continuing Anglican church body in the United States and Canada. Although all of its worship centers and clergy are currently located in the American Great Lakes states and the Canadian Province of Ontario, the diocese is non-geographical in structure and open...

 in founding the North American Anglican Conference
North American Anglican Conference
The North American Anglican Conference is a federation of Continuing Anglican church bodies in the United States and Canada. The NAAC was founded on August 15, 2008 by an assembly of bishops, clergy, and laity gathered in Romulus, Michigan for the purpose of ratifying the association's proposed...

. Cooperation on the training of clergy is one objective of the conference.

The two Continuing churches consider themselves to be in the Anglican Low Church
Low church
Low church is a term of distinction in the Church of England or other Anglican churches initially designed to be pejorative. During the series of doctrinal and ecclesiastic challenges to the established church in the 16th and 17th centuries, commentators and others began to refer to those groups...

 tradition, Evangelical, and conservative. The Thirty-nine Articles
Thirty-Nine Articles
The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion are the historically defining statements of doctrines of the Anglican church with respect to the controversies of the English Reformation. First established in 1563, the articles served to define the doctrine of the nascent Church of England as it related to...

are accepted unconditionally; and the 1928 Book of Common Prayer is used for all public worship by both bodies.

External links

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