The Right Reverend Mark Van Koevering | |
|---|---|
| Bishop of Lexington | |
| Church | Episcopal Church |
| Diocese | Lexington |
| Elected | November 1, 2019 |
| In office | 2019–present |
| Predecessor | Douglas Hahn |
| Orders | |
| Consecration | September 14, 2003 by Njongonkulu Ndungane |
| Personal details | |
| Born | |
| Nationality | American |
| Denomination | Anglican (prev. Reformed Church) |
| Spouse | Helen Van Koevering |
| Children | 3 |
| Previous post(s) | Bishop of Niassa (2003-2015) Assistant Bishop of West Virginia (2015-2018) Provisional Bishop of Lexington (2018-2019) |
Mark Van Koevering is an American prelate of the Episcopal Church, who is the eighth and current Bishop of Lexington.
Van Koevering was consecrated as Bishop of Niassa, Mozambique, part of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, in 2003, where he served until November 2015.
Van Koevering was raised in the Christian Reformed Church. He studied agriculture and plant breeding at university, working in Thailand, China and then as an agriculturist with DanChurchAid in Niassa, Mozambique. There he met and married Helen, who was working with the Christian Council of Mozambique, reuniting war orphans with their families. He was the diocesan director of development when he felt called to the ministry. He trained Trinity College, Bristol and was ordained in Wales, working under Rowan Williams, the then archbishop[ clarification needed ] in Newport when the people of Niassa elected him as their bishop. His wife Helen was ordained shortly before leaving Wales in 2003.
Until April 2011 the Van Koeverings' ministry in Niassa was supported through USPG. In April 2011 The Van Koevering Trust Fund was set up to secure funds for the furthering of the Van Koeverings' ministry in Niassa.
In November 2015, he moved back to the United States, to become the assistant bishop at the Episcopal Diocese of West Virginia. [1] In February 2018, he became the Bishop Provisional of the Episcopal Diocese of Lexington [2] On November 1, 2019, Bishop Van Koevering was elected the eighth diocesan bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Lexington.
Since the 1990s, the Anglican Communion has struggled with controversy regarding homosexuality in the church. In 1998, the 13th Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops passed a resolution "rejecting homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture". However, this is not legally binding. "Like all Lambeth Conference resolutions, it is not legally binding on all provinces of the Communion, including the Church of England, though it commends an essential and persuasive view of the attitude of the Communion." "Anglican national churches in Brazil, South Africa, South India, New Zealand and Canada have taken steps toward approving and celebrating same-sex relationships amid strong resistance among other national churches within the 80 million-member global body. The Episcopal Church in the U.S. has allowed same-sex marriage since 2015, and the Scottish Episcopal Church has allowed same-sex marriage since 2017." "Church of England clergy have appeared to signal support for gay marriage after they rejected a bishops' report which said that only a man and woman could marry in church." The Church of England's 2019 General Synod was set to discuss a diocesan motion "to create a set of formal services and prayers to bless those who have had a same-sex marriage or civil partnership". At General Synod in 2019, the Church of England announced that same-gender couples may remain married and recognised as married after one spouse experiences a gender transition provided that the spouses identified as opposite genders at the time of the marriage.
The Episcopal Church of Jerusalem and the Middle East is a province of the Anglican Communion. The primate of the church is called President Bishop and represents the Church at the international Anglican Communion Primates' Meetings. The Central Synod of the church is its deliberative and legislative organ.
The Anglican Church of Southern Africa, known until 2006 as the Church of the Province of Southern Africa, is the province of the Anglican Communion in the southern part of Africa. The church has twenty-five dioceses, of which twenty-one are located in South Africa, and one each in Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia and Saint Helena. In South Africa, there are between 3 and 4 million Anglicans out of an estimated population of 45 million.
The Anglican Church of Mexico, originally known as Church of Jesus is the Anglican province in Mexico and includes five dioceses. The primate is Enrique Treviño Cruz, Bishop of Cuernavaca. Although born in Mexico and not being the result of any foreign missionary effort, the shield of the denomination uses the colors representing Mexico as well as those of the United States-based Episcopal Church recognizing its historical connection with the US church since obtaining the apostolic succession from that church.
The Pastoral Provision is a set of practices and norms in the Catholic Church in the United States, by which bishops are authorized to provide spiritual care for Catholics converting from the Anglican tradition, by establishing parishes for them and ordaining priests from among them. The provision provides a way for individuals to become priests in territorial dioceses, even after Pope Benedict XVI's Anglicanorum Coetibus proclamation established the Personal Ordinariates, a non-diocesan mechanism for former Anglicans to join the Church.
The Diocese of Niassa it is one of the three Anglican dioceses of Mozambique, part of the Anglican Church of Mozambique and Angola. This diocese is geographically the central of the three, the others being the Diocese of Lebombo and the Diocese of Nampula.
The Episcopal Church in North Texas was a diocese of the Episcopal Church from 1982 to its merger with the Diocese of Texas in 2022. The diocese included a geographic area of 24 counties in the north central part of Texas. As of 2021, it includes 13 churches, including a number of other congregations in the process of reorganization. The jurisdiction was the site of a major schism in 2008. This schism was the result of the diocese's bishop, Jack Iker, leading the majority of clergy and parishes to join the Anglican Church of North America as the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth. The Episcopal Church diocese is headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas. It announced on April 22, 2022 that it would seek reunion with the Episcopal Diocese of Texas. The merger was finalized by the 80th General Convention of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America on July 11, 2022.
The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh is a diocese in the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. Geographically, it encompasses 11 counties in Western Pennsylvania. It was formed in 1865 by dividing the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania. The diocesan cathedral is Trinity Cathedral in downtown Pittsburgh. The Rt. Rev. Ketlen A. Solak was consecrated and seated as its current bishop in autumn 2021.
The Anglican ministry is both the leadership and agency of Christian service in the Anglican Communion. "Ministry" commonly refers to the office of ordained clergy: the threefold order of bishops, priests and deacons. More accurately, Anglican ministry includes many laypeople who devote themselves to the ministry of the church, either individually or in lower/assisting offices such as lector, acolyte, sub-deacon, Eucharistic minister, cantor, musicians, parish secretary or assistant, warden, vestry member, etc. Ultimately, all baptized members of the church are considered to partake in the ministry of the Body of Christ.
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 974 congregations and 122,450 members in 2021. The first archbishop of the ACNA was Robert Duncan, who was succeeded by Foley Beach in 2014.
The Episcopal Diocese of Lexington is the diocese of The Episcopal Church with jurisdiction over eastern Kentucky. It was created in 1895 from the Diocese of Kentucky which continues to have jurisdiction of the western portion of the state. The cathedral for the Diocese of Kentucky is located in Louisville. The Diocese of Lexington is in Province 4 and its cathedral, Christ Church Cathedral, is in Lexington, as are the diocesan offices. The diocesan office is called Mission House.
The Diocese of Lebombo is a diocese in the Anglican Church of Mozambique and Angola. It is one of the three Anglican dioceses of Mozambique. This diocese is the most southerly of the three, the others being the Diocese of Niassa and the Diocese of Nampula.
The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth is a diocese of the Anglican Church in North America. The diocese comprises 62 congregations and its headquarters are in Fort Worth, Texas.
The Episcopal/Anglican Province of Alexandria is a province of the Anglican Communion. Its territory was formerly the Diocese of Egypt with North Africa and the Horn of Africa. On 29 June 2020 the diocese was elevated to the status of an ecclesiastical province, and became the forty-first province of the Anglican Communion. The primate and metropolitan of the province is the archbishop of Alexandria.
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.
Charles Wallis Ohl Jr. was the Provisional Bishop of Fort Worth in The Episcopal Church. Jack Iker had been the Bishop of Fort Worth in the Episcopal Church until a super-majority of the diocese voted to dissolve its union with the General Convention at the 2007 and 2008 diocesan conventions. Those members of the diocese who wished to remain in the Episcopal Church met in a special convention on February 7, 2009. Edwin F. Gulick Jr., the Bishop of Kentucky who was planning to retire soon, was appointed as Provisional Bishop. In November 2009, the Annual Convention of that diocese elected Ohl as their new provisional bishop.
Vicente Msosa is a Mozambican Anglican bishop. He has been the bishop of the Diocese of Niassa, in Mozambique, at the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, since 1 April 2017. He was installed the youngest bishop of the Anglican Communion, aged 35 years old. He is married to Anastacia and they have three children.
The Anglican Church of Mozambique and Angola [Igreja Anglicana de Moçambique e Angola (IAMA)] is the 42nd ecclesiastical province of the world-wide Anglican Communion. Established in 2021, is the newest province to have been erected. Previously the dioceses which constitute this new province were parts of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa. The new province adopted its constitution and canons at a special synod, and was formally inaugurated on 24 September 2021, in an online teleconference including Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Josiah Idowu-Fearon, Secretary-General of the Anglican Consultative Council.
