KENYA: Two former Episcopal priests consecrated as bishops for North America
Episcopal News Service. August 30, 2007 [083007-03]
Matthew Davies
Kenya's Anglican Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi consecrated two former Episcopal priests -- William Murdoch and Bill Atwood -- as suffragan bishops of All Saints Cathedral Diocese on August 30.
The new bishops, Nzimbi said, will "assist with providing ... oversight and Episcopal care ... for the congregations and clergy in the USA under Kenyan jurisdiction."
Such events have been described as "interventions" or "boundary crossings" by official councils or representatives of the Anglican Communion. Despite calls by the Instruments of Communion, including the Primates themselves, for such interventions to cease, some Anglican leaders continue to cross provincial boundaries and exercise authority over congregations in the U.S. without necessary consultation or consent from the leadership of the Episcopal Church. Atwood, from Carrollton, Texas, is general secretary of The Ekklesia Society, which describes itself as "an international society committed to making disciples of Jesus Christ." Formerly canonically resident in Dallas, he was transferred to the Province of the Southern Cone by Bishop James Stanton in July, 2006.
Murdoch, Dean of the New England Convocation of the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes (NACDP), is the former rector of All Saints' Church in West Newbury, Massachusetts.
Pittsburgh Bishop and NACDP moderator Robert Duncan and Fort Worth Bishop Jack Iker joined 10 Primates from the Global South at the service at All Saints Cathedral in Nairobi, according to reports. Archbishop Drexel Gomez of the West Indies preached.
In a similar move last year, Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola consecrated Martyn Minns, former rector of Truro Church in Fairfax, Virginia, to lead the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA), a conservative missionary effort in the U.S. sponsored by the Anglican Church of Nigeria. Minns reportedly attended the August 30 service.
The Anglican Primates, at their February meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, acknowledged that interventions by bishops and archbishops of some Provinces have heightened "estrangement between some of the faithful and the Episcopal Church [and] this has led to recrimination, hostility and even to disputes in civil courts."
The Episcopal Church's House of Bishops, at their last meeting in March, noted that such violations of provincial boundaries have "caused great suffering and contributed immeasurably to our difficulties in solving our problems and in attempting to communicate for ourselves with our Anglican brothers and sisters."
The bishops, in their March 2007 letter to the Episcopal Church, said: "We have been repeatedly assured that boundary violations are inappropriate under the most ancient authorities and should cease … The Dar es Salaam Communiqué affirms the principle that boundary violations are impermissible, but then sets conditions for ending those violations, conditions that are simply impossible for us to meet without calling a special meeting of our General Convention."
The Dar es Salaam Communiqué gives the House of Bishops a September 30 deadline for them to "make an unequivocal common covenant" that they will not authorize same-gender blessings within their dioceses nor give the necessary consent for a candidate for bishop who is living in a same-gender relationship "unless some new consensus on these matters emerges across the Communion."
The bishops will address the requests of the Primates when they next meet September 20-25 in New Orleans. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams will attend part of that meeting at the bishops' invitation.