The Diocese of Quincy has quit the Episcopal Church and affiliated with the Province of the Southern Cone, making it the third diocese to quit the American church over its leftward theological drift.On Nov 7 delegates to the diocesan synod meeting at St John’s Church in Quincy, Illinois, approved the second and final reading of a constitutional amendment withdrawing from the Episcopal Church. The vote was 41-14 in the clergy order and 54-12 by the laity.
A second resolution affiliating the diocese with the Southern Cone pending the creation of a Third Province in North America was approved 46-4 in the clergy order and 55-8 in the lay order.
One of the US church’s smallest dioceses, Quincy comprises 24 congregations spread across rural west central Illinois. Traditionally Anglo-Catholic, Quincy was one of three dioceses in the Episcopal Church that did not ordain women clergy. Four congregations are expected to remain within the Episcopal Church.
Diocesan spokesman the Rev. John Spencer said the decision to quit the Episcopal Church was “not made lightly.”
The diocese had “talked and prayed about this for a very long time. But we take our relationship to the Anglican Communion very seriously. Since 2003, over half the Provinces of the Anglican Communion have been in a state of broken Communion with The Episcopal Church. By realigning with the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone, we are now back in full communion with the majority of over 75 million Anglicans around the world,” he said.
Following the vote, the president of the diocesan standing committee, the Rev Canon Edward den Blaauwen, read a note of congratulations from Archbishop Gregory Venables, Primate of the Southern Cone.
Bishop Venables further appointed Canon den Blaauwen his vicar-general of the diocese. On Nov 1 the Bishop of Quincy, the Rt Rev Keith Ackerman, resigned due to ill health. Before the start of the synod, Bishop Ackerman urged the diocese to remain faithful to the Gospel and to the historic faith of the church as it considered the options before it.
Fr Spencer said that Bishop Ackerman did not address the synod or preside at its worship services. Nor did he offer advice on how the synod should vote on disaffiliation.
During the first reading of the bill to quit the Episcopal Church in 2007, Bishop Ackerman was ill and did not preside at the synod’s business sessions.
“While the votes show there was very strong support for this decision,” Fr Spencer said, “we realize this was not a unanimous decision.”
By a separate action, the synod made provision for a nine months grace period during which a congregation or member of the clergy might consider withdrawing from the diocese in order to stay in the Episcopal Church.
“It is a matter of allowing everyone to follow their consciences in these very difficult times, without recrimination,” he said.
The synod also passed a series of resolutions to structure its transition out of the Episcopal Church. It removed geographic limitations on parish membership for admission to the diocese, allowing parishes outside the current geographic boundaries to join the diocese.
It endorsed the Jerusalem Declaration of the Gafcon movement, backed the Common Cause Partnership’s call for a third Anglican province in North America, and approved payment of its diocesan financial assessment to the Southern Cone.
On Nov 8 Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said she “laments the departure from the Episcopal Church of some individuals in southern Illinois,” but added that “the Episcopal Diocese of Quincy remains, albeit with fewer members, and we are working to assist in the reorganization of diocesan affairs.”
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(Source: RI)