"To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven..."                                                    (Eccl. 3:1)

• June Encompass  
• Ugandan Primate Restates Intention to Boycott Lambeth
• Common Cause Council of Bishops Set for Sept. 25 – 28
• Colorado Congregation Votes to Leave the Episcopal Church
• Trinity Episcopal Church, Bristol leaves TEC

June Encompass

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Ugandan Primate Restates Intention to Boycott Lambeth
Source: The Living Church
5/30/2007

The Church of Uganda will boycott the 2008 Lambeth Conference if the bishops who participated in the New Hampshire consecration are seated at the gathering of bishops from across the Anglican Communion.

In a statement released on May 30, Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda stated that as Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams had extended invitations to "all the American bishops who consented to, participated in, and have continued to support the consecration" of Bishop V. Gene Robinson in New Hampshire, the Church of Uganda would honor the commitment it made last December and not attend.

On Dec. 9, the Ugandan House of Bishops unanimously endorsed "The Road to Lambeth", a statement prepared by the Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa (CAPA), which stated its members "will definitely not attend any Lambeth Conference to which the violators of the Lambeth Resolution [1.10] are also invited as participants or observers." On May 22, Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria noted his church’s participation in the conference was also in doubt because of its affirmation of the CAPA statement.

A spokesman for the Church of Uganda said Archbishop Orombi was "simply re-stating a decision the [Ugandan bishops] took in December, and, applying it in light of the present circumstances."

The issue "is not so much" Bishop Robinson, "as it is a church that could make the decision that it made and persist in it, rather than repent. At this point, the violators have been invited, so the archbishop is now applying a decision that had already been made," the spokesman said.

A member of the Primates’ Standing Committee, Archbishop Orombi has been invited by the American House of Bishops to meet with its members prior to the September 30 deadline set by the primates for compliance with the primates’ communique. Archbishop Orombi's attendance at the meeting has not been settled, his spokesman noted.

While The Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops meets Sept 20-25 in New Orleans, a spokesperson for the Archbishop of Canterbury could not confirm the dates of the visit to the United States by Archbishop Williams, the Joint Primates-ACC Standing Committee members, and ACC Secretary General Canon Kenneth Kearon.

In a related matter, retired Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. George Carey, queried the rationale for not inviting the bishops of the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA) and the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA) to the Lambeth Conference.

"My opposition to the consecration of two AMiA bishops related to the setting up of Episcopal activity in the United States which I regarded as unconstitutional and unnecessary," he wrote in a letter to the editor of Church of England Newspaper.

"Everything has changed in the Anglican Communion as a result of the consecration of Gene Robinson," Archbishop Carey noted.

Note: Read Lord Carey's letter here 

Common Cause Council of Bishops Set for Sept. 25 – 28
Source: Common Cause Press Release
May 31, 2007

Bishops from the Anglican Communion Network, the Anglican Mission in the Americas (including the Anglican Coalition in Canada), the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, the Anglican Network in Canada, the Anglican Province of America, Forward in Faith North America and the Reformed Episcopal Church are invited to attend the first-ever Common Cause Council of Bishops in Pittsburgh, PA, September 25-28. Two of the Common Cause Partners, the American Anglican Council and Anglican Essentials Canada, are not ecclesial jurisdictions and do not have bishops. Several other Anglican jurisdictions are currently in the membership process.

Since its formation in 2004, Anglican bodies connected to each other through Common Cause have committed to working together for "a Biblical, missionary and united Anglicanism in North America." Together, they have crafted a common theological statement and articles of federation. Both are being considered and adopted by each Common Cause Partner.

"By the time we meet, the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church will have given its response to the Anglican Communion as to its decision to 'walk apart.' By contrast, I expect our gathering to signal a new level of 'walking together' both with each other and with the wider Anglican world," wrote Anglican Communion Network Moderator and Common Cause convener Bishop Robert Duncan. The meeting, said Bishop Duncan, is the result of many years of work toward Anglican unity, work responding to resolutions of both the Lambeth Conference of Bishops and The Episcopal Church’s General Convention.

Bishop Duncan went on to describe the purpose of the gathering as fivefold.

1) to take the Common Cause Partnership to the next level of development in mission together;
2) to showcase ministry initiatives of any of the partners that might be shared with all the partners (e.g., The Anglican Relief and Development Fund);
3) to share understandings of the purpose and role of bishops such that some common guidelines for the making of bishops relative to numbers of communicants and congregations might be developed;
4) to consider whether a permanent Common Cause College of Bishops might be created, in order that ever greater levels of communication, cooperation and collaboration can be built; and
5) to initiate discussion of the creation of an "Anglican Union" among the partners, moving forward the vision of the Primates of the Global South for a new "ecclesiastical structure of the Anglican Communion in the USA."

"The Council of Bishops lacks the voice of the laity. It is not a full synod of the Common Cause Partners, but it is the next step agreed upon by the Common Cause Roundtable. While it is not the end of our journey, it does continue the trajectory of ever greater unity and ever closer cooperation between those of us who know Jesus as the only Lord. In the challenging weeks and months ahead, let us say our prayers, do the work before us and trust 'that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new,'" said Bishop Duncan.

Colorado Congregation Votes to Leave the Episcopal Church
Source: Grace Church and St. Stephen's Parish, Colorado Springs, Press Release
May 26, 2007
Contact: Alan Crippen

(Colorado Springs, Colorado) Grace Church and St. Stephen's Parish voted to affiliate with the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA) in a congregational election that concluded today. Of the 370 votes cast, an overwhelming 342, or 93%, voted for the mother church of Anglicanism in Colorado Springs and one of the oldest Episcopal Churches in Colorado to leave the Episcopal Church over its departure from traditional Christian beliefs and practice.

Last March the vestry, or governing board of the Parish, had voted to join CANA in a provisional affiliation that was ratified by the congregation today. The Parish’s new affiliation with CANA, an American missionary diocese of the Church of Nigeria and the largest Anglican Church in the world, allows Grace Church and St. Stephen’s the freedom to continue its Gospel ministry unmolested by theological innovators and revisionists in the Episcopal Church.

Jon Wroblewski, senior warden of the parish’s vestry said, "The congregation’s decision to join CANA is the most important decision in Grace Church and St. Stephen's 135 year history. We have decided to remain true to the faith of our ancestors and the founders of this parish even as the Episcopal Church departs from the faith and the Anglican Communion."

Founded in 1872, Grace Church and St. Stephen's was the first Anglican Church in Colorado Springs and helped to establish all the other Episcopal Churches in the city including: The Chapel of our Savior, St. Michael's, and Holy Spirit (now defunct), St. Francis (now defunct), and St. Andrew's in Manitou Springs. Grace Church and St. Stephen's pre-dates the existence of the Diocese of Colorado (1887).

Read the complete press release here

Trinity Episcopal Church, Bristol leaves TEC
Source: Hartford Courant 
May 31 2007
By: Elizabeth Hamilton - Courant Staff Writer

Trinity Episcopal Church in Bristol - one of six churches at odds with Bishop Andrew Smith over his vote to ordain a gay bishop - has become the first Connecticut parish to split from the wider Episcopal Church.

Members of the Bristol congregation voted overwhelmingly in January to join the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, a self-described mission of the conservative Anglican Church of Nigeria, but an application was not made until late April.

Continue reading "Trinity Episcopal Church, Bristol leaves TEC"