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Orthodox Anglican Church | |
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![]() OAC crest | |
Orientation | Anglicanism |
Polity | Episcopal |
Presiding Bishop | Thomas Gordon |
Associations | Member of the Orthodox Anglican Communion |
Region | North America |
Origin | 1963 |
Separated from | Episcopal Church (USA) |
Congregations | 17 churches and missions |
Official website | www |
The Orthodox Anglican Church (OAC) is the American branch of the Orthodox Anglican Communion. Because of similarities in churchmanship and doctrine, it is usually considered to be part of the Continuing Anglican movement, although the church's origins predate the start of that movement and it was publicly critical of the Continuing Anglican churches when they were founded during the late 1970s.
The church was founded by Episcopalians who withdrew from the Episcopal Church in 1963. The new jurisdiction was incorporated in the state of North Carolina in March 1964. Its founders intended to establish a conservative and low-church alternative to the Episcopal Church. Episcopal polity with apostolic succession were maintained with the consecration of its first bishop on Passion Sunday in 1964 by bishops of Eastern Orthodox and Old Catholic lineages.
In 1999, Bishop Robert Godfrey and a majority of the church's clergy met in committee and determined to align the church more closely with the Continuing Anglican churches in worship style. A name change was also made. In opposition, lay leaders and standing committee close to the founding bishop and a small minority of the clergy subsequently started a new church and incorporated anew as the Anglican Orthodox Church International (AOCI).
On April 30, 2000, Godfrey retired as Presiding Bishop in favor of his suffragan bishop, Scott Earle McLaughlin.
In 2005, the jurisdiction changed its name from the Episcopal Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of America to the Orthodox Anglican Church. [1]
Godfrey and McLaughlin were signatories to the Bartonville Agreement in 1999. In 2007, McLaughlin signed a Covenant of Intercommunion between the OAC and the Old Catholic Church in Slovakia, represented by the Most Revd Augustin Bacinsky. [2] The Old Catholic Church of Slovakia seceded from the Utrecht Union in 2004 because of the Union's approval of women's ordination and same-sex blessings.
On Ash Wednesday 2012, McLaughlin announced his retirement and the nomination of Creighton Jones of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, to be his successor. That nomination was confirmed by the General Convention on June 9, 2012. Jones was consecrated as a bishop and enthroned as the presiding bishop and metropolitan archbishop on July 21, 2012, at the Anglican Church of the Good Shepherd in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
In 2014, the church celebrated 50 years as a jurisdiction of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church and also marked the 50th anniversary of its incorporation in the state of North Carolina (March 6, 2014).
On November 16, 2014, Archbishop Jones announced his retirement and nominated his suffragan, Thomas Gordon, to be his successor. On April 18, 2015 a special general convention of the church was held and delegates from the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico unanimously approved of the nomination. Thomas E. Gordon was enthroned the same day as the sixth Presiding Bishop of the Orthodox Anglican Church and Metropolitan of the Orthodox Anglican Communion.
The Orthodox Anglican Church has 17 churches and missions in the United States and Puerto Rico. [3]
Saint Andrew's Theological College and Seminary was founded by the Orthodox Anglican Church in 1971.
The Orthodox Anglican Church's offices are in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The Presiding Bishop of the American church, Thomas E. Gordon, also serves as Metropolitan of the global Orthodox Anglican Communion.
A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution.
An episcopal polity is a hierarchical form of church governance in which the chief local authorities are called bishops. It is the structure used by many of the major Christian Churches and denominations, such as the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Church of the East, Anglican, and Lutheran churches or denominations, and other churches founded independently from these lineages.
In many Christian denominations, an archbishop is a bishop of higher rank or office. In some cases, such as the Lutheran Church of Sweden and the Church of England, the title is borne by the leader of the denomination. In others, such as the Roman Catholic Church, there are many archbishops who either have jurisdiction over an ecclesiastical province in addition to their own archdiocese, or are otherwise granted a titular archbishopric.
In Christian churches with episcopal polity, the rank of metropolitan bishop, or simply metropolitan, pertains to the diocesan bishop or archbishop of a metropolis.
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.
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The Anglican Province of America (APA) is a Continuing Anglican church in the United States. The church was founded by former members of the Episcopal Church in the United States in order to follow what they consider to be a more truly Christian, Catholic, and Anglican tradition. It comprises two dioceses in the United States: Diocese of the Eastern United States (DEUS) and the Diocese of the Central and Western States (DCWS). The combined American dioceses total 50 congregations, with an estimated 4,000 members. Worldwide, the Church has an estimated 30,000 members.
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The Anglican Episcopal Church (AEC) was a Continuing Anglican church consisting of parishes in Arizona, Alaska, and Florida served by a presiding bishop and several other clergy. The AEC was founded at St. George's Anglican Church in Ventura, California.
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James Parker Dees was the founder and first bishop of the Orthodox Anglican Church and the Orthodox Anglican Communion. Dees was born in Greenville, North Carolina on December 30, 1915, the son of James Earle Dees and Margaret Burgwin (Parker) Dees. He graduated in 1938 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in political science and economics, then took a year of graduate study in international relations. From 1939 until 1942, he worked for the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad in Greenville, North Carolina. For two years after the Second World War, he was a baritone soloist with the New York Opera Company. He then studied at the Protestant Episcopal Church’s Virginia Theological Seminary for his Bachelor of Divinity degree, graduating in 1949. He was ordained as a deacon in the Episcopal Church on June 29, 1949; and as a priest by Thomas Henry Wright, Bishop of East Carolina, at the Church of the Holy Cross, in Aurora, North Carolina, on January 19, 1950. As a member of the Diocese of North Carolina, he served in charges in Aurora, Beaufort, and Statesville. His concerns about advancing liberalism caused him to withdraw from the denomination in 1963. Dees was discouraged from joining the Reformed Episcopal Church by fundamentalist leader Carl McIntire because of the REC's alleged association with groups perceived as being neo-evangelical. The decision to form a new jurisdiction was made. Dees founded the Anglican Orthodox Church on November 17, 1963 - the first religious body to withdraw from the PECUSA in the modern era. On Passion Sunday, March 15, 1964 Dees was consecrated a bishop by Wasyl Sawyna of the Holy Ukrainian Autocephalic Orthodox Church of North and South America, assisted by Orlando Jacques Woodward, a bishop of Old Catholic succession.
The historic or historical episcopate comprises all episcopates, that is, it is the collective body of all the bishops of a church who are in valid apostolic succession. This succession is transmitted from each bishop to their successors by the rite of Holy Orders. It is sometimes subject of episcopal genealogy.
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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 30 dioceses and 1,037 congregations serving an estimated membership of 134,593 in 2017. In 2020, the denomination reported 972 congregations and 126,760 members. The first archbishop of the ACNA was Robert Duncan, who was succeeded by Foley Beach in 2014.
The Bartonville Agreement came from a meeting held in May 1999 by bishops representing both the Anglican Communion's American province and a number of Continuing Anglican jurisdictions in North America. As such, it was an early effort made by conservative Episcopal bishops and Continuing Anglican bishops to voice a common set of principles which might become the basis of future cooperation between their churches or dioceses. The schism that had divided these church bodies had occurred in 1977 at the Congress of St. Louis when "Continuers" met and formed a new Anglican church in reaction to changes in doctrine and practice that had been approved by The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada.
Scott Earle McLaughlin was the Presiding Bishop of the Orthodox Anglican Church, Metropolitan Archbishop of the Orthodox Anglican Communion, and the Chancellor of Saint Andrew's Theological College and Seminary. On 1 May 1999 McLaughlin was consecrated as a bishop by Herbert M. Groce, Metropolitan Archbishop of the Anglican Rite Synod in the Americas, assisted by Bishop Larry Shaver of the Anglican Rite Synod in the Americas, and Bishop Robert J. Godfrey of the Orthodox Anglican Communion. His apostolic succession is Anglican, Old Catholic, and Orthodox. McLaughlin served as suffragan bishop until 30 April 2000, when Bishop Godfrey retired. He was then elected Presiding Bishop of the Orthodox Anglican Church and Metropolitan Archbishop of the Orthodox Anglican Communion. He was the fourth archbishop to lead the Orthodox Anglican Communion and the Orthodox Anglican Church. He is married with four children; two sons and two daughters.
T. Creighton Jones was the Presiding Bishop of the Orthodox Anglican Church and Metropolitan Archbishop of the Orthodox Anglican Communion. His apostolic succession is Anglican, Old Catholic, and Orthodox. He was the fifth archbishop to lead the Orthodox Anglican Communion and the Orthodox Anglican Church.
Thomas E. Gordon is the sixth Presiding Bishop of the Orthodox Anglican Church and Metropolitan Archbishop of the Orthodox Anglican Communion. On November 16, 2014, Creighton Jones announced his retirement and nominated Gordon, then his suffragan, to be his successor. Gordon became Metropolitan on April 18, 2015.
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