Anglican Network in Canada Réseau Anglican au Canada | |
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Location | |
Ecclesiastical province | Anglican Church in North America |
Statistics | |
Parishes | 76 (2023) [1] |
Members | 5,847 (2023) [1] |
Information | |
Rite | Anglican |
Current leadership | |
Diocesan bishop | Dan Gifford |
Suffragans | Mike Stewart, Stephen Leung |
Website | |
anglicannetwork |
Part of a series on the |
Anglican realignment |
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The Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) is a group of Anglican churches in Canada and the United States established in 2005 under the jurisdiction of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, a province of the Anglican Communion. It was a founding diocese of the Anglican Church in North America in June 2009. It comprises 73 congregations in ten Canadian provinces, Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland & Labrador, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Ontario, Quebec, and one American state, Massachusetts. [2] Their first Moderator Bishop was Don Harvey, from 2009 to 2014, when he was succeeded by Diocesan Bishop Charlie Masters. Bishop Dan Gifford became Diocesan Bishop in 2022.
The Anglican Network in Canada aims to "remain faithful to established Christian doctrine and Anglican practice" [3] and represent orthodox Anglicanism in Canada. ANiC is a major Canadian constituent of the Anglican realignment movement. The irregular nature of ANiC makes it the geographically largest Anglican diocese in the world, covering the entire territory of Canada and a small pocket in the northeastern United States, in Massachusetts and Vermont. [4] The Anglican Network in Canada is a diocese within the Anglican Church in North America.
The stated mission of the Anglican Network in Canada is to "Build Biblically faithful, Gospel sharing, Anglican Churches". The network desires to build new churches and expand existing churches that it believes will be fully Anglican, biblically faithful, evangelizing and discipling. [5]
The Anglican Network upholds what it believes to be the historical, biblical and traditional Christian beliefs found in the Anglican tradition pertaining to the Holy Trinity, sexuality, and authority of Christian scripture. ANiC also affirms the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral of 1886/1888 and the Jerusalem Declaration of GAFCON 2008. [6] While women can be ordained as deacons or priests they cannot be ordained as bishops. The diocese does not bless same-sex unions or marriages. They also oppose abortion and euthanasia. [7]
Most churches within the Anglican Network in Canada now worship based on the liturgy and practices of the Book of Common Prayer 2019, developed by the Anglican Church in North America. Most parishes celebrate the Holy Communion (Eucharist) at least once a week, with many churches holding multiple services.
Within ANiC there exists a wide diversity of worship and music styles. There are some churches in ANiC which identify as High Church and Anglo-Catholic, while there are churches at the other end of the spectrum which identify as low church and evangelical [8] and some which would be described as more charismatic. Music in their services can very from hyms and songs let by organ, piano, guitars, or full orchestras and choirs.
ANiC gained a degree of media attention, primarily in two respects. Firstly, the network upholds traditional Christian understandings of morality including what it believes are the orthodox Biblical ideas about family, marriage and discipleship. The network has been criticized by the mainline Anglican Church of Canada, the Canadian media, secular interest groups and other liberal, mainline denominations for taking a stand against same-sex unions and same-sex marriage. [9]
Since 2007, the diocesan bishops (previously called "moderator bishops") of ANIC have been:
ANIC's suffragan bishops have included Masters, who served as area bishop for eastern Canada from 2009 until his election as diocesan bishop in 2014; Trevor Walters, who was area bishop for western Canada from 2009 to 2022; Stephen Leung, who since 2009 has been suffragan bishop for Asian and multicultural ministry; and Mike Stewart, who has been area bishop for western Canada since 2024.
ANIC is also canonical residence for several retired bishops of the Anglican Church of Canada, including William Anderson of Caledonia, Terry Buckle of Yukon, Ronald Ferris of Yukon and Algoma and ANIC assisting bishop for church planting, [10] and Malcolm Harding of Brandon.
One prominent member of the Anglican Network in Canada was J. I. Packer, who was a leading theologian in the Anglican and North American evangelical world. He was a longtime honorary assistant at St. John's Vancouver and a professor of theology at Regent College. During his lifetime, Packer was canon theologian emeritus of ANIC. [11] [12]
As of 2022, the Anglican Network in Canada had 72 parishes. Notable parishes in the diocese include:
Church | Image | City | Year founded | Year completed | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Church of Our Lord | Victoria, British Columbia | 1875 | 1975 | Previously a member of the Reformed Episcopal Church | |
St. Peter and St. Paul's Anglican Church | Ottawa, Ontario | 1885 | pre-1885 | Previously St. George's Anglican Church | |
Anglican Church of the Good Samaritan | St. John's, Newfoundland | 2008 | 1959 | ||
St. John's Vancouver | Vancouver, British Columbia | 2011 | N/A | Separated from St. John's Shaughnessy | |
In October 2009, ANiC's leadership reacted to the Roman Catholic Church's proposed creation of personal ordinariates for disaffected traditionalist Anglicans by saying that this provision would probably not have a great impact on its laity and clergy, who are satisfied with the Anglican realignment movement. [13] In June 2013, at least one priest from the ANIC denomination has accepted the offer to become a Catholic priest. [14] Furthermore, Bishop Don Harvey stated that "Apart from being an intrusion at the very highest levels of one major church into the internal affairs of another, under the guise of being ecumenical, this invitation offers very little that is new." [15]
ANiC is a member of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada. ANiC has established ecumenical contacts with the Lutheran Church-Canada. [16] It is also has been involved in ecumenical dialogue with other Lutheran and Christian church bodies as part of the ACNA.
The Anglican Church of Australia, formerly known as the Church of England in Australia and Tasmania, is a Christian church in Australia and an autonomous church of the Anglican Communion. It is the second largest church in Australia after the Catholic Church. According to the 2016 census, 3.1 million Australians identify as Anglicans. As of 2016, the Anglican Church of Australia had more than 3 million nominal members and 437,880 active baptised members. For much of Australian history since the arrival of the First Fleet in January 1788, the church was the largest religious denomination. It remains today one of the largest providers of social welfare services in Australia.
The Church of South India (CSI) is a united Protestant Church in India. It is the result of union of a number of Protestant denominations in South India that occurred after the independence of India.
James Innell Packer was an English-born Canadian evangelical theologian, cleric and writer in the low-church Anglican and Calvinist traditions. Having been considered as one of the most influential evangelicals in North America, Packer is known for his 1973 best-selling book Knowing God, along with his work as the general editor of the English Standard Version Bible. He was one of the high-profile signers on the 1978 Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, a member on the advisory board of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, and also was involved in the ecumenical book Evangelicals and Catholics Together in 1994. His last teaching position was as the board of governors' Professor of Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, in which he served from 1996 until his retirement in 2016 due to failing eyesight.
The Anglican Church of Canada is the province of the Anglican Communion in Canada. The official French-language name is l'Église anglicane du Canada. In 2022, the Anglican Church counted 294,931 members on parish rolls in 1,978 congregations, organized into 1,498 parishes. The 2021 Canadian census counted 1,134,315 self-identified Anglicans, making the Anglican Church the third-largest Canadian church after the Catholic Church and the United Church of Canada.
Trinity Anglican Seminary, formerly known as Trinity School for Ministry, is an Anglican seminary in Ambridge, Pennsylvania. It is generally associated with evangelical Anglicanism.
Wycliffe College is an evangelical graduate school of theology at the University of Toronto. Founded in 1877 as an evangelical seminary in the Anglican tradition, Wycliffe College today attracts students from many Christian denominations from around the world. As a founding member of the Toronto School of Theology, students can avail themselves of the wide range of courses from Canada's largest ecumenical consortium. Wycliffe College trains those pursuing ministry in the church and in the world, as well as those preparing for academic careers of scholarship and teaching.
The Reformed Episcopal Church (REC) is an Anglican Church. It was founded in 1873 in New York City by George David Cummins, a former bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church.
The Anglican realignment is a movement among some Anglicans to align themselves under new or alternative oversight within or outside the Anglican Communion. This movement is primarily active in parts of the Episcopal Church in the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada. Two of the major events that contributed to the movement were the 2002 decision of the Diocese of New Westminster in Canada to authorise a rite of blessing for same-sex unions, and the nomination of two openly gay priests in 2003 to become bishops. Jeffrey John, an openly gay priest with a long-time partner, was appointed to be the next Bishop of Reading in the Church of England and the General Convention of the Episcopal Church ratified the election of Gene Robinson, an openly gay non-celibate man, as Bishop of New Hampshire. Jeffrey John ultimately declined the appointment due to pressure.
The Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) is a Christian denomination in the Anglican tradition in the United States and Canada. It also includes ten congregations in Mexico, two mission churches in Guatemala, and a missionary diocese in Cuba. Headquartered in Ambridge, Pennsylvania, the church reported more than 1,000 congregations and more than 128,000 members in 2023. The first archbishop of the ACNA was Robert Duncan, who was succeeded by Foley Beach in 2014. In June 2024, the College of Bishops elected Steve Wood as the third archbishop of the ACNA. Authority was transferred to him during the closing Eucharist at the ACNA Assembly 2024 conference in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.
The ordination of women in the Anglican Communion has been increasingly common in certain provinces since the 1970s. Several provinces, however, and certain dioceses within otherwise ordaining provinces, continue to ordain only men. Disputes over the ordination of women have contributed to the establishment and growth of progressive tendencies, such as the Anglican realignment and Continuing Anglican movements.
Bishop T. B. D. Prakasa Rao was the fourth CSI-Bishop - in - Krishna-Godavari of the Protestant Church of South India who occupied the Cathedra placed at CSI-St. Paul's Cathedral, Vijayawada. The Bishopric of Prakasa Rao lasted for two decades from 1981 through 2001, one of the longest in the history of the Church of South India Society. Prakasa Rao led the bishopric of Krishna-Godavari that comprised the Christian missions established by the London Missionary Society (LMS) and the Church Missionary Society (CMS) which merged its South India Christian missions in India into the Church of South India Society which was inaugurated in 1947 at the CSI-St. George's Cathedral, Madras.
Charles Frederick Masters is a Canadian bishop. He served from 2014 to 2022 as moderator bishop of the Anglican Network in Canada within the Anglican Church in North America.
Donald Joseph Bolen, also known as Don Bolen, is a Canadian Catholic prelate. He is the Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Regina, since his appointment by Pope Francis on 11 July 2016; having previously served as Bishop of the Diocese of Saskatoon.
St. Vincent's Cathedral is an Anglican church in Bedford, Texas. It is the cathedral of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth. The cathedral played a major part in the Anglican realignment by hosting the inaugural assembly in 2009 where the Anglican Church in North America was constituted.
The Anglican Network in Europe (ANiE) is a small Christian denomination in the Anglican tradition with churches in Europe. Formed as part of the worldwide Anglican realignment, it is a member jurisdiction of the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (GAFCON) and is under the primatial oversight of the chairman of the GAFCON Primates Council. ANiE runs in parallel with the Free Church of England (RECUK). GAFCON recognizes ANiE as a "proto-province" operating separately from the Church of England, the Scottish Episcopal Church, the Church in Wales and other Anglican Communion jurisdictions in Great Britain and the European continent. ANiE is the body hierarchically above the preexisting Anglican Mission in England; the former is the equivalent of a province whilst the latter is a convocation, the equivalent of a diocese.
Daniel Christian Gifford is an American-born Canadian bishop of the Anglican Church in North America. In February 2022, he was consecrated as coadjutor bishop of the Anglican Network in Canada and succeeded Charlie Masters as diocesan bishop of ANiC in November 2022. He was previously archdeacon for the Vancouver area in ANiC and vicar of St. John's Vancouver.
St. John's (Shaughnessy) Memorial Church is an Anglican parish in the Shaughnessy neighborhood of Vancouver. Founded in 1925, the church is part of the Diocese of New Westminster in the Anglican Church of Canada. Once reported to be the largest Anglican church in Canada and a bastion of evangelicalism, most of the congregation and clergy left during the Anglican realignment and the church is today much smaller and aligned with the progressive wing of Canadian Anglicanism.
St. John's Vancouver Anglican Church is an evangelical Anglican church in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It was founded in 2011 by the clergy and almost all of the laity of St. John's Shaughnessy after the group left the Anglican Church of Canada over theological and moral issues and the congregation lost a legal battle to keep its building during the Anglican realignment. With more than 700 in regular attendance, it is the largest church in the Anglican Network in Canada, a diocese of the Anglican Church in North America.
The Anglican Church of the Good Samaritan is an Anglican church in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Founded in 2008, it is a member of the Anglican Network in Canada, which separated from the Anglican Church of Canada. Since 2022, Good Samaritan has been home to Packer College, ANiC's diocesan seminary.
Michael Stewart is a British-born Canadian Anglican bishop. He was consecrated in 2024 as bishop suffragan of the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) in the Anglican Church in North America, where he serves as area bishop for western Canada. He was previously in parish ministry in Abbotsford, British Columbia, where he participated in the Anglican realignment in the 2000s.