The Rt. Rev. Herbert M. Groce of the American Anglican Church has been elected Presiding Bishop of the newly-formed Federation of Anglican Churches, a merger of eight bodies and 14 bishops of "continuing Anglican" churches.

Bishop Groce was rector of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, Harlem, when he left the Episcopal Church for the American Anglican Church and founded the parish of St. Joseph of Arimathea. He was bishop of that church's Diocese of St. Paul covering New Jersey and New York, at the time of his election at the May conference of traditional churches in St. Louis.

The conference was an attempt by the American Anglican Church, the American Rite Catholic Church, the Anglican Episcopal Church and others to "do something about the splintering" of the continuing movement. Several other groups attended the conference as observers or possible future signatories to the Articles of Federation.

The Federation, said Bishop Groce, is not in communion with the Episcopal Church because of three issues: the ordination of women, of gays, and the blessing of same-sex marriages.

The Rt. Rev. Donald Perschall, ecumenical officer and rector of Ascension Church, Webster Groves, Mo., said that he and Bishop Groce were consecrated by bishops of the American Anglican Church, whose line is traced through the Philippine Independent Catholic Church.

The Articles of Federation state its adherence to the creeds, the 1928 Prayer Book, and the "doctrine, discipline and worship ... expressed in the 1801 Episcopal Articles of Religion and the 1886-1888 Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral."