Open Episcopal Church

Last updated

The Open Episcopal Church (OEC) is a liberal Christian denomination. It has bishops in England and Wales and clergy throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. It has over 29,000 members. [1]

Contents

The church was the first in Britain to ordain a woman as bishop and to perform religious wedding ceremonies for gay couples.

The OEC is a member of the International Council of Community Churches, which in turn is a member of The World Council of Churches and Churches Uniting in Christ.

History

Founding of the Society for Independent Christian Ministry

In 1994 Jonathan Blake, who had been a priest in the Church of England for over 12 years, effected a Deed of Relinquishment, [2] severing his denominational ties.

As an independent priest [3] he offered sacramental ministry to all. In 1997 he wrote about these experiences in his book, For God's Sake Don't Go To Church. [4] The same year he nailed 95 theses [5] to the door of Canterbury Cathedral, for which he was arrested [6] but not charged. [7]

A lesbian from the north of England arranged to meet Blake after reading his book. She felt a call to the ministry but had been rebuffed by the church over her sexuality and was interested in independent ministry. Following the meeting Blake placed an advert in the Church Times inviting all those interested in such a ministry to a conference the following March. Over 100 people contacted him, among them Richard Palmer, [8] who had been consecrated as a bishop of the Liberal Catholic Church in 1997, but had resigned in April 1999.

Blake wrote the Founding Principles [9] of the Society for Independent Christian Ministry (SICM), which was inaugurated by a group of Christians reciting the Lord’s Prayer in the Sanctum of the Holy Circle Trust [10] near Ryarsh in Kent at sunrise on 1 January 2000.

In February 2001, Blake conducted the first gay wedding blessing on Richard and Judy's prime time TV programme This Morning . [11]

Founding of the Open Episcopal Church

By the time SICM met for the third time in Bournemouth, Palmer required those who had been ordained simply in Dartford to be ordained sub conditione at this gathering in a full rite of ordination. Blake realized that a new denomination had to be founded and set about writing the necessary canons.[ citation needed ]

At Hazlewood Castle, Michael Wilson [12] was consecrated a bishop by Palmer and Blake. The three bishops issued the "Hazlewood Declaration" on 10 November 2001, which facilitated the creation of the Open Episcopal Church. The church viewed itself as being in succession from the Old Catholic Church, which had been established in England in 1908 by Arnold Mathew from See of Utrecht and continued through the Liberal Catholic Church. [13]

The first congress of the church was held at the All Saints Pastoral Centre in June 2004. The church's college of bishops met at Weston Manor in Oxfordshire in January 2005 and Wilson, an evangelical, resigned from the Church. The second congress was held at Whaley Hall at Whaley Bridge in mid 2005. In October, Roger Whatley [14] was consecrated a bishop in the Chapel of the Ammerdown Conference Centre.

Development

The church has had three archbishops: Richard Palmer, who left the church along with Roger Whatley after the allotted five-years of Palmer's tenure as archbishop ended; Elizabeth Stuart, who left the church in 2006 and was appointed the Archbishop of the Province of Great Britain and Ireland of the more traditionalist Liberal Catholic Church International; and Jonathan Blake, OEC's founder, who was the church's sole remaining bishop after Stuart left.

In 2008 the Open Episcopal Church became a member of the International Council of Community Churches [15] and through them, a member of the World Council of Churches and Churches Uniting in Christ. [16]

The church received national and international attention due to the wedding blessing Blake conducted for reality television figures Jade Goody and Jack Tweed, [17] [18] through interviews broadcast after Jade Goody's death, [19] through the prayer released before Jade Goody's funeral, [20] through Blake's response to Michael Parkinson's criticism of Goody, [21] [22] [23] through the launch of Post the Host (an outreach provision to distribute the consecrated Hosts by post), [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] and through David Gillham leading the prayers in the Scottish Parliament. [32]

Following Jade Goody's wedding, Christopher Woods, Chaplain and Director of Studies in Theology at Christ's College, Cambridge, called upon the Church of England to speak out against Blake and the OEC. The Church of England declined to comment. [33]

The church consecrated the first woman as a bishop for Wales in 2007.[ citation needed ] The bishop of Scotland, David Gillham, ordained Helen Hamilton at St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall, Orkney in 2010; Gillham later fell into dispute with the church and left. [34] Hamilton was subsequently consecrated as the first woman bishop for Scotland in June 2012. [35] She made an episcopal visit to Derry. [36] In 2013 the church consecrated a female bishop for Northumberland. [37]

Blake contributed to the book A Strange Vocation: Independent Bishops Tell Their Stories in 2009, [38] and contributed liturgical material to Geoffrey Duncan's anthology Courage to Love [39] and Leanne Tigert and Maren Tirabassi's compilation All Whom God Has Joined. [40] In 2014 Blake's book That Old Devil Called God Again: The Scourge of Religion was published. [41]

The church has clerics from Anglican, Roman Catholic, Pentecostal, Lutheran and Franciscan backgrounds and has grown internationally into America, Egypt, Brazil and Thailand. [42] The church promotes its KITE Awards for young people making a positive difference in the community. [43] [44]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anglican Communion</span> International Christian communion

The Anglican Communion is the third largest Christian communion after the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. Founded in 1867 in London, the communion has more than 85 million members within the Church of England and other autocephalous national and regional churches in full communion. The traditional origins of Anglican doctrine are summarised in the Thirty-nine Articles (1571). The archbishop of Canterbury in England acts as a focus of unity, recognised as primus inter pares, but does not exercise authority in Anglican provinces outside of the Church of England. Most, but not all, member churches of the communion are the historic national or regional Anglican churches.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Church of England</span> Anglican state church in England

The Church of England is the established Christian church in England. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain by the 3rd century and to the 6th-century Gregorian mission to Kent led by Augustine of Canterbury. Its adherents are called Anglicans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jade Goody</span> English reality television personality (1981–2009)

Jade Cerisa Lorraine Goody was an English television personality. She was a contestant on the third series of the Channel 4 reality show Big Brother in 2002. Following her eviction from the show, Goody went on to star in her own television programmes, which in turn led to her launching a variety of products under her own name.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anglican Province of Christ the King</span>

The Anglican Province of Christ the King (APCK) is a Continuing Anglican church with traditional forms both of doctrine and liturgy. It is considered one of the more Anglo-Catholic jurisdictions among Continuing Anglican church bodies.

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." At General Synod in 2019, the Church of England announced that same-gender couples may remain recognised as married after one spouse experiences a gender transition. In 2023, the Church of England announced that it would authorise "prayers of thanksgiving, dedication and for God's blessing for same-sex couples."

The Continuing Anglican movement, also known as the Anglican Continuum, encompasses a number of Christian churches, principally based in North America, that have an Anglican identity and tradition but are not part of the Anglican Communion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anglican Church of Australia</span> Church of the Anglican Communion

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 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anglican Catholic Church</span> Continuing Anglican denomination

The Anglican Catholic Church (ACC), also known as the Anglican Catholic Church (Original Province), is a body of Christians in the continuing Anglican movement, which is separate from the Anglican Communion led by the Archbishop of Canterbury (and symbolically and ceremonially, by the British monarch, as Supreme Governor of the Church of England). This denomination is separate from the Anglican Catholic Church in Australia and the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada.

The Charismatic Episcopal Church (CEC), officially the International Communion of the Charismatic Episcopal Church (ICCEC), is a Christian denomination established in 1992. The ICCEC is a part of the Convergence Movement. Within North America, most of the Charismatic Episcopal Church's congregations and missions are located within the Northern, Southeastern, Midwest, and Western United States; it also has a presence in Texas, and in Western Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katharine Jefferts Schori</span> Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America

Katharine Jefferts Schori is the former Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church of the United States. Previously elected as the 9th Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Nevada, she was the first woman elected as a primate in the Anglican Communion. Jefferts Schori was elected at the 75th General Convention on June 18, 2006, and invested at Washington National Cathedral on November 4, 2006, and continued until November 1, 2015, when Michael Bruce Curry was invested in the position. She took part in her first General Convention of the Episcopal Church as Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church in July 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Curry (bishop)</span> Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church since 2015

Michael Bruce Curry is an American bishop who is the 27th and current presiding bishop and primate of The Episcopal Church. Elected in 2015, he is the first African American to serve as presiding bishop in The Episcopal Church. He was previously bishop of the Diocese of North Carolina.

The Bishop of Ebbsfleet is a suffragan bishop who fulfils the role of a provincial episcopal visitor in the Church of England. From its creation in 1994 to 2022, the Bishop of Ebbsfleet served conservative Anglo-Catholic parishes that reject the ordination of women as priests and bishops. Since 2023, the bishop has served conservative evangelical parishes that reject the ordination and/or leadership of women due to complementarian beliefs.

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 Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans is a communion of biblically orthodox Anglican churches that formed in 2008 in response to ongoing theological disputes in the worldwide Anglican Communion. Conservative Anglicans met in 2008 at the Global Anglican Future Conference, creating the Jerusalem Declaration and establishing the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA), which was rebranded as GAFCON in 2017.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jonathan Baker (bishop)</span>

Jonathan Mark Richard Baker is a bishop of the Church of England. He is currently the suffragan Bishop of Fulham and was formerly the Bishop of Ebbsfleet.

Matthew John Parker is a British bishop who has served as area Bishop of Stafford since 2021. He was previously Archdeacon of Stoke since 2013.

References

  1. ↑ "Organisation". The Open Episcopal Church. Archived from the original on 27 July 2011. Retrieved 23 June 2023.
  2. ↑ "Clerical Disabilities Act 1870". Legislation. Archived from the original on 13 November 2012. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  3. ↑ "Have dog collar, will travel: Counselling, dance workshops, conflict" . The Independent. 21 October 1994. Archived from the original on 24 May 2022.
  4. ↑ For God's Sake Don't Go To Church ISBN   0-85305-446-0 Published by Arthur James.
  5. ↑ "Jonathan's 95 Theses". The Most Reverend Jonathan Clive Blake. Archived from the original on 10 September 2011. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  6. ↑ Chryssides, George D. (2012). Historical Dictionary of New Religious Movements. Scarecrow Press. p. 260. ISBN   9780810861947.
  7. ↑ "Archbishop Jonathan Blake || Christian Alternative || Author Profile". Archived from the original on 1 September 2017. Retrieved 26 June 2017.
  8. ↑ "lcc.cc". www.lcc.cc.
  9. ↑ "Welcome to the SICM Website". SICM. Archived from the original on 9 September 2010. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  10. ↑ The Holy Circle Trust. Charity Number 1066062
  11. ↑ "Richard and Judy screen gay wedding". BBC News. 14 February 2001. Archived from the original on 4 November 2013. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  12. ↑ "Rent-a-bishop at your service". Lancashire Telegraph. 7 August 2004. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  13. ↑ "About". The Open Episcopal Church. Archived from the original on 27 July 2011. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  14. ↑ "Roger Whatley". Church Times. Archived from the original on 25 March 2012. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  15. ↑ Hooton, Michael (2016). The Extended Family. Wipf & Stock Publishers. pp. 159–160. ISBN   9781498280853.
  16. ↑ "Europe". International Council of Community Churches. Archived from the original on 12 May 2016. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  17. ↑ "Jade Goody's Wedding". Archived from the original on 26 February 2009.
  18. ↑ Thompson, Damian (22 February 2009). "Jade Goody, Archbishop Blake and the strange phenomenon of 'wandering bishops'". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 21 October 2011. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  19. ↑ "Bishop praises Jade". Talk Talk. Archived from the original on 3 October 2012. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  20. ↑ "Jade Goody's funeral: What the star planned for her last journey". mirror. 2 April 2009.
  21. ↑ "Bishop Hits Back After Jade Goody Criticism". Sky News. 8 April 2009. Archived from the original on 11 April 2009. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  22. ↑ "Bishop hits back at Sir Michael Parkinson comments on Jade Goody". Telegraph. 8 April 2009. Archived from the original on 11 April 2009. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  23. ↑ "Jade Goody's wedding bishop defends her against Sir Michael Parkinson's criticism". Mirror. 8 April 2009. Archived from the original on 21 October 2012. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  24. ↑ "Find Here Your Way to God". Post the Host. Archived from the original on 14 May 2023. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  25. ↑ Butt, Riazat (8 June 2009). "Praise the Lord and post the Host: church's plan to woo worshippers". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 6 September 2013. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  26. ↑ Tompkins, Stephen. "The Open Episcopal Church's wafer wheeze". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 6 September 2013. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  27. ↑ "Church leaders offer communion wafers in the post". Telegraph. 9 June 2009. Archived from the original on 12 June 2009. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  28. ↑ Tomkins, Stephen (June 2009). "Mass hysteria". Ship of Fools. Archived from the original on 2 July 2009. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  29. ↑ Pope, Charles (9 June 2011). "Reductio Ad Absurdum - Host in the Post!". Archdiocese of Washington. Archived from the original on 9 August 2011. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  30. ↑ "Host by post". Religion News Service. 9 June 2009. Archived from the original on 29 September 2011. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  31. ↑ Thompson, Damian (20 August 2014). "Satanists are planning to desecrate the Host at a Black Mass. Let's stop them". The Spectator. Archived from the original on 25 March 2016. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  32. ↑ "Minutes of Proceedings Vol. 3, No. 47 Session 3". The Scottish Parliament. 20 January 2010. Archived from the original on 23 April 2010. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  33. ↑ Gledhill, Ruth (23 February 2009). "Bishop who blessed union of Jade Goody and Jack Tweed faces criticism". The Times. Archived from the original on 25 June 2023. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  34. ↑ McQuillan, Rebecca (2 April 2012). "Helen Hamilton, Scotland's First Female Bishop" . Retrieved 21 June 2023– via PressReader.
  35. ↑ "Nun made Scotland's first bishop". The Herald. 7 June 2012. Retrieved 25 June 2023.
  36. ↑ "Bishop Helen makes first visit to the city". Northern Ireland. 17 September 2012. Archived from the original on 25 June 2023. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  37. ↑ "New church comes to Bloomington". The Herald-Times. 28 December 2013. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  38. ↑ A strange Vocation - Independent bishops tell their stories ISBN   1-933993-75-8 Published by Apocryphile Press
  39. ↑ Courage to Love ISBN   0-8298-1468-X Published by The Pilgrim Press
  40. ↑ All Whom God has Joined ISBN   0-8298-1838-3 Published by The Pilgrim Press
  41. ↑ "Archbishop Jonathan Blake". Christian Alternative The New Open Spaces. Archived from the original on 7 August 2016. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  42. ↑ "Worship begins in Chiang Mai!". All Saints' Chiang Mai. 24 June 2013. Archived from the original on 18 August 2014. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  43. ↑ "The OEC Kite Awards 2012". The Open Episcopal Church. Archived from the original on 17 March 2012. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  44. ↑ "Apply for 10k award says Norfolk Deacon" (PDF). The Norwich and Norfolk Christian Community. Archived from the original (PDF) on 30 June 2021. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.