Displaying items by tag: church split

Philip de Grey-Warter, vicar of Fowey for 17 years, resigned from the Church of England and on 6 October started his own church in the town. The new church community, Anchor, will be run under the auspices of AMiE (Anglican Mission in England), a mission society established by GAFCON to multiply and strengthen healthy Anglican churches in England, assisting in evangelism and Biblical teaching. It intends to pioneer 25 AMiE churches by 2025. GAFCON is a global movement of conservative Anglican clergy who aim to restore the Bible to the heart of the Anglican Communion. Mr de Grey-Warter decided to leave the CofE when the House of Bishops allowed the baptism liturgy to be used for those who are transitioning gender. He denied that the new church is homophobic, and posted his story online . See also

Young men brought clubs and brass knuckles to Pechersk Monastery in Kiev, intent on disrupting worship. Police spread-eagled them against a wall depicting centuries-old frescoes of saints, then hauled them away. Meanwhile at a small church in the centre of Kiev, a dozen men organised round-the-clock guard duty against nationalist radicals making their third attempt in a year to seize their place of worship. These incidents underline Ukraine’s potent, possibly explosive mix of politics, religious faith, and national identity that is emerging in the creation of an Orthodox church of its own. There are deep concerns about what will happen to the 12,000 churches and their property in the church split. The war between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists, which has killed 10,000+ people, has increased hostility towards the Moscow Patriarchate churches. With such passions on both sides, it is feared that more violence between the two sides lies ahead.

Talks have begun to try to reach an amicable separation between members of four conservative evangelical churches and the Diocese of Christchurch. The congregations of the four churches voted by large majorities to disaffiliate following the decision in May by the General Synod of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia to permit churches in New Zealand to bless same-sex marriages. Archbishop Philip Richardson, one of the Primates of the ANZP, has now met with senior diocesan staff and archdeacons and the vicars and wardens of the four parishes to discuss how their members could disaffiliate ‘in a respectful manner’ while maintaining good communication and leaving doors open. ‘This is a broken and painful place to be,’ Archbishop Philip said, ‘but we need to find a way to walk through this uncharted land that is gracious, hospitable and realistic.’ They now enter a three month ‘resignation/exit process’ so that ‘logistics are managed sensitively’.