The American Anglican Council has issued a press release: A Statement from the President of the American Anglican Council Congratulating Archbishop Akinola on Formation of CANA:
The American Anglican Council offers its congratulations and gratitude to the Church of Nigeria and its Primate, Archbishop Peter Akinola, in the establishment of CANA as Convocation for Anglicans in North America and the consecration of Canon Martyn Minns, as its first Missionary Bishop.
These are difficult times for faithful Anglicans and the AAC is especially thankful for the creative and timely response of many of the Global South primates in recognizing the danger that the Episcopal Church in the United States posed for the Anglican Communion and the offer of safe harbor that was and has been extended to congregations in the United States looking for orthodox episcopal and primatial oversight. Additionally the AAC is deeply appreciative of the clear and prophetic voice of Global South primates who have spoken up, at great cost personally and for their provinces, and called the Anglican Communion to a holy and orthodox faith consonant with the historic teachings of both Christianity and Anglicanism.
We take note of the vision and heart that the Global South has for evangelism, and in expanding the Anglican Church family, and note in particular efforts by the Global South Steering Committee members in reaching out to parts of mainland Asia and seeking closer ties and understanding. It is leadership such as this that combines pastoral concern for those churches in the United States that are under persecution by their own province, for adherence to orthodoxy of the faith, and for vision to reach fields still ripe for the harvest that marks Christian leadership that others can model their lives on.
Some of you may remember that originally CANA stood for Convocation of Anglican Nigerian Churches in America, see as evidence this statement (last April) from the official Nigerian provincial website:
After much prayer and careful discernment with appropriate colleagues and advisors over the last two years, and in full consultation with the Nigerian congregations in America, together with the enthusiastic endorsement of the Episcopal Synod and the Standing Committee of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) we announce the formation of the Convocation of Anglican Nigerian Churches in America.
This Convocation will function as a ministry of the Church of Nigeria in America. Our intention is not to challenge or intervene in the churches of ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada but rather to provide safe harbour for those who can no longer find their spiritual home in those churches. While it will initially operate under our Constitution and Canons, it will have its own legal and ecclesial structure and local suffragan episcopate. I will be asking the next General Synod of the Church of Nigeria, which will meet in September 2005, to make the necessary constitutional amendments.
Then in September 2005, it became Convocation of Anglican Nigerians in Americas (CANA).
Now of course it stands instead for Convocation of Anglicans in North America a term first used officially in November 2005. Corrected: hat tip to Fr Jake
As the December review of 2005 explained:
April 2005
A carefully worded statement by the Primate of Nigeria announced the formation of Convocation of Anglican Nigerians in America. (CANA)
In a pastoral letter announcing the convocation, the Primate said the ministry of Church of Nigeria in the US will provide a safe harbour for worshippers who feel estranged because of the revisionist agenda of some North American Churches.
In the same month of April, the Primate published a letter to members of the Church intimating them about the recent developments of the Anglican Communion particularly the outcome of the Primates’ February meeting in Northern Ireland. He talked about the intransigence of the North American Churches on the issue of homosexuality. He dismissed it as unfounded the alleged influence of external forces on some Primates in their decision to suspend the North American Churches.November 2005
The Church of Nigeria announced a covenant with the Reformed Episcopal Church and the Anglican Province of America, signaling the implementation of the amended constitution. Chapter 1 Section 3 of the constitution states that “The Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) hereinafter called “The Church of Nigeria” or “This Church” shall be in full communion with all Anglican Churches Dioceses and Provinces that hold and maintain the Historic Faith, Doctrine, Sacrament and Discipline of the one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church as the Lord has commanded in His holy word and as the same are received as taught in the Book of Common Prayer and the ordinal of 1662 and in the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion.” With a name change, they now become part of CANA, The Convocation for Anglicans in North America.
And, in case you forgot, the Primates at Dromantine said in February 2005 (emphasis added):
15. In order to protect the integrity and legitimate needs of groups in serious theological dispute with their diocesan bishop, or dioceses in dispute with their Provinces, we recommend that the Archbishop of Canterbury appoint, as a matter of urgency, a panel of reference to supervise the adequacy of pastoral provisions made by any churches for such members in line with the recommendation in the Primates’ Statement of October 2003. Equally, during this period we commit ourselves neither to encourage nor to initiate cross-boundary interventions.
Earlier, the Windsor Report had recommended:
155. We call upon those bishops who believe it is their conscientious duty to intervene in provinces, dioceses and parishes other than their own:
- to express regret for the consequences of their actions
- to affirm their desire to remain in the Communion, and
- to effect a moratorium on any further interventions.
We also call upon these archbishops and bishops to seek an accommodation with the bishops of the dioceses whose parishes they have taken into their own care.
It is very useful to have chapter & verse like this. Thanks.
Much of it including subtle name changes, and slippages, puts me in mind of Animal Farm.
If ++Cantuar, +Dunelm and +Winchester acted in the best interests of the Anglican Communion, they would speak out against the border-crossings more forcefully rather than engage in such actions themselves, now with the so-called “Windsor bishops” gathering at Camp Allin in Texas in the presence of ++Cantuar’s emissaries/commissaries – to wit, +Dunelm and +Winchester. The present ++Cantuar has disgraced the legacy of ++Geoffrey Fisher, ++Michael Ramsey, ++Donald Coggan et al., and especially the legacy of the first Executive Officer of the Anglican Communion, +Stephen F. Bayne, Jr. After initially approving the selection of Jeffrey John as Bishop of Reading, the… Read more »
Thank you for recalling Dromantine 15 and WR 115. When the folks who are so critical of TEC applaud those who are Dromantine or Windsor “compliant,” surely they do not have these parts in mind. I am weary of their hypocrisy.
At the new CANA website referred to in an earlier posting, a map of the world appears with a handful of US cities named; among them New York City. There is no indication on this website (that I can find) giving a rationale for this listing of cities, nor for what New York has to do with Abuja (apart from Archbishop Akinola’s honorary “chair” at the Cathedral Church of St John the Divine). Are there any CANA congregations in New York City (which spans two US dioceses: New York and Long Island)? Does anyone know? Meanwhile, thanks to Simon for… Read more »
You will be far better off without them – as I am!
I cannot let pass unchallenged the statement on the CANA website by Canon Minns that TEC “unilaterally sacked the former Nigerian chaplain” who had been appointed to look after Nigerian Anglican expats in the U.S., and that by this action had made the formation of CANA necessary. This is untrue. I know, because until my retirement the end of 2004, I was the Presiding Bishop’s deputy for Anglican relations and responsible for oversight of TEC’s share of the Nigerian Anglican chaplaincy jointly established by Bishop Griswold and Abp Akinola. The truth is that the chaplain had overspent his budget and… Read more »
I think we can possibly rest assured that prohibited boundary crossings are as important to the conservatives as the Lambeth 1.10 1998 listening process has been. Alas. Now, of course, CANA comes out its own closets as a missionary effort of the real conservagive Anglicans against all the other believers who are definitively pronounced UN-Anglican in no uncertain terms. I still do not think Rowan Williams will like being the first among these equals – especially if he continues to balk at unintelligent readings of scripture, and some other reading materials as well. Many conservative personal bests are yet to… Read more »
I am grateful to Patrick Mauney for clarifying this, from his own experience. It is discouraging the way people seem to lie–but I guess that is a naive thing to say, knowing what we do about the way the mind functions around perception, memory and so on. So that misunderstandings lead to misinformation and everyone thinks they are right. Even so, I tend to think Peter Akinola seizes any moment, so that his power can be increased. –or do I just want to demonise him ? (That is, have a personal investment in demonising him), which would be unethical &… Read more »
If there is a crisis, it is a crisis of conscience and moral grounding in these characters who claim (but malign) orthodoxy.
Patrick Simon has started a new thread on funding (thanks for your posting). My other contemplations of the last few days is that the only way this crisis could have been averted was to quietly submit to one faction imposing its theology across the alternative “unsuitable” elements under the broad tent of Anglicanism. Personally, that reeks a bit like the torturer telling you that it is your fault that you were burnt with the brand (when your choices were to be silent and be burnt with the brand, or speak and be burnt at the stake). Either way they were… Read more »
I am neither Anglican nor Episcopalian, and I do not belong to the Anglican Communion. However, I find myself, time and again, reading about the issues in the Anglican Communion. It is just saddening to see the difficulties in the Anglican Communion. I just wish that the brothers and sisters in faith in the Communion would abandon the unhelpful bickering that is going on and fall on their knees in prayers and supplications that that heartfelt prayers of Jesus may come to fulfillment: “Father that they may be one.” If only we can just remember the words of the psalmist:… Read more »
The Anglican Communion seems to be ignoring the authority of the holy scripture hence, many of our provinces and dioceses are desecrated and beset with multifarious kinds of sins. Many of our sanctuaries no longer provide the spiritual umbrella that it used to guarantee. Holiness and devotion to things of God have left.The daughters of Jezebel and Delilah have gained entrance to the church, they are all around the altars of God, parading themselves as Presiding Bishops, Archbishops and Bishops.The household of Achan have found their way back to the church of God. The Ananias and Sapphiras have been exalted.… Read more »
I assure you, respect for the authority of Holy Scripture has left the Anglican Communion. What has left is the respect once accorded fellow Anglicans to prayerfully respond to the call of Scripture in their own time and place. Archbishop Akinola knows nothing about the chruch and its people in the United States. As a result, he can bring no sanity. He can only interfere. Judgement on the sanctity of the church in America is not his to wield.
I am a sinner saved by faith in Jesus Christ. I became a member of TEC about 10 years ago because I am moved by its formal liturgy in the BCP and because I believed that the services in the BCP faithfully followed the holy scriptures. However, recently I noticed that slowly some TEC parishes stopped using the BCP service, substituting an abbreviated version in the weekly bulletin. In particular, I noticed that the confession of sin and repentance section always seemed to be missing, as if we are no longer sinners? Then the consecration of the homosexual bishop shocked… Read more »