Ecuador To Request Extra-Provincial Status
Episcopal News Service. March 8, 1979 [79073]
Playas, Ecuador -- The XII Diocesan Convention of the Episcopal Church of Ecuador decided here to request the Colorado General Convention next fall to grant the Missionary Diocese of Ecuador extra-provincial status so that it can form, together with Colombia and Venezuela, an autonomous province within the Anglican Communion.
The resolution requested that the metropolitical authority be transferred to the House of Bishops of the Ninth Province of the Episcopal Church or to the Anglican Council of South America (CASA).
The Rt. Rev. Adrian D. Caceres, Bishop of Ecuador, announced here that a similar resolution was passed by the Missionary Diocese of Colombia which recently elected the Ven. Bernardo Merino as its new bishop.
Bishop Caceres said that the Anglican Church of Venezuela is in the process of leaving the Church in the Province of the West Indies in order to form the new Anglican province which will be know as ARENSA (Episcopal Regional Association of Northern South America).
Venezuela would also be temporarily placed under the metropolitical authority of the House of Bishops of the Ninth Province.
He added that ARENSA is inviting the Anglican Church in Peru to be part of the new province since "historically and culturally they are part of us." The resolution said that ARENSA "constitutes the most effective way to form an autonomous province with Latin American identity."
This is not the first time that an overseas missionary diocese has made such a decision. In 1964 the Episcopal Church in Brazil became an autonomous province within the Anglican Communion, after being a missionary district of the U. S. Episcopal Church for many years.
The 1976 General Convention in Minnesota granted extra-provincial status to the Diocese of Costa Rica in Central America at its own request.
Puerto Rico also has decided to become autonomous and is requesting the Colorado Convention for such a status.
If Puerto Rico, Colombia, and Ecuador become extra-provincial dioceses, then Province IX will be composed of the dioceses in Mexico, Central America, and Dominican Republic.
The dioceses of the Ninth Province are full members of the General Convention of the Episcopal Church.