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The term Continuing Anglican refers to a number of conservative Anglican churches that have formed outside of the Anglican Communion. Although there were some earlier examples of independent Anglican churches being formed, "Continuing Anglicanism" was born in the late 1970s when the Episcopal Church in the United States of America first ordained women priests and produced a new Book of Common Prayer. Additional changes in the faith and practices of the Episcopal Church and other provinces of the Anglican Communion since then, such as the ordination of open, rather than closeted, homosexuals to the priesthood and the episcopate, have further distanced the Continuing churches from them.
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Continuing churches have generally been formed by clergy and lay people who left churches belonging to the Anglican Communion. These older Anglican churches are charged by the Continuing Church movement with being greatly compromised by secular cultural standards and liberal approaches to theology.
Many Continuing churches, particularly those in the United States, use the term Anglican to differentiate themselves from The Episcopal Church, but this has been controversial because Anglican formerly referred to churches in communion with the Church of England and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Many continuing Anglicans believe that the Archbishop (and many of those churches in communion with him) have departed from orthodox Christian faith, and do not seek to be in communion with him. Some have, more recently, established communion with member provinces or dioceses of the Anglican Communion.
Anglicanism in general has always sought a balance between the emphases of Catholicism and Protestantism, while tolerating a range of expressions of evangelicalism and ceremony. Clergy and laity from all such Anglican factions were active in the formation of the Continuing Anglican movement.
The movement originated in the Episcopal Church in the United States of America (ECUSA) and the Anglican Church of Canada (ACC). Related churches in other countries, such as the Anglican Catholic Church in Australia and the Church of England (Continuing), were founded later.
In 1976, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America (ECUSA) voted to approve the ordination of women to the priesthood and to the episcopate and also provisionally adopted a new and doctrinally controversial Book of Common Prayer, later called the 1979 version. During the following year, 1977, several thousand dissenting clergy and laypersons responded to those actions by meeting in St. Louis, Missouri under the auspices of the Fellowship of Concerned Churchmen and adopted a theological statement, the Affirmation of St. Louis [1]. The Affirmation expressed a determination "to continue in the Catholic Faith, Apostolic Order, Orthodox Worship and Evangelical Witness of the traditional Anglican Church, doing all things necessary for the continuance of the same."
Out of this meeting came a new church with the provisional name of "Anglican Church in North America (Episcopal)." The first bishop of the new church, the Right Reverend Charles Doren, was consecrated by a retired bishop of ECUSA, the Right Reverend Albert Chambers of the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, along with Bishop Francisco Pagtakhan of the Philippine Independent Church as co-consecrator. Although expected to be the third bishop participating in Doren's consecration, the Right Reverend Mark Pae of the Anglican Church of Korea sent a letter of consent instead. This development left the new group open to charges of violating the customs of apostolic succession, in which three bishops customarily are present, although only one is necessary for a valid consecration. The newly-consecrated Bishop Doren then joined with Bishops Chambers and Pagtakhan in consecrating as bishops the Reverend James Mote, the Reverend Robert Morse, and the Reverend Francis Watterson. Bishop Watterson left the movement shortly afterward and became a Roman Catholic priest.
During the process of ratifying the new church's constitution, disputes developed which split its dioceses into two American churches and a separate Canadian church. These were the Anglican Catholic Church led by Bishop Mote, the Diocese of Christ the King (now the Anglican Province of Christ the King) led by Bishop Morse, and the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada. In 1981, Bishop Doren and others left the Anglican Catholic Church to found the United Episcopal Church of North America in opposition to the alleged inhospitality of the other jurisdictions towards Low Churchmen. At present, however, the Anglican Catholic Church, the Anglican Province of Christ the King, and the United Episcopal Church of North America are in discussions about possible organic unity.
Most of the Continuing churches are avowedly Anglo-Catholic, and their liturgies are highly ceremonial. Some others, however, adhere to the Evangelical tradition, favoring a modified Calvinist view as reflected in the Anglican Thirty-nine Articles and featuring the use of Morning Prayer for a majority of Sunday worship services. Most Continuing churches use the 1928 Book of Common Prayer for their services, although some of the more ardently Anglo-Catholic bodies use Missals and other forms. Most use the Authorized Version of Holy Scripture (also known as the King James Version) for public readings, as opposed to modern translations. This is done for both aesthetic reasons and in protest against the supposedly liberal theology that versions such as the New Revised Standard Version are believed to embody.
The principles of the Affirmation of St. Louis and, to a lesser extent, the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, provide some basis for unity in the movement, but the jurisdictions are numerous, usually quite small in membership, and often splinter and recombine. Reports put the number of jurisdictions at somewhere between 20 and 40, mostly in North America, but fewer than a dozen of the churches popularly called "Continuing churches" can be traced back to the meeting in St. Louis.
The movement gained some new members and clergy in the early 2000s as the controversy within the Episcopal Church concerning homosexuality came to the forefront, but while some individuals and parishes leaving the Episcopal Church in this era affiliated with Continuing church bodies, most joined churches affiliated with the Anglican realignment effort instead. Members of several Episcopal dioceses have recently withdrawn from the Episcopal Church and, with the Reformed Episcopal Church, created a new church in the United States and Canada. The name selected for the new province is Anglican Church in North America (ACNA).
Unlike the Continuing Anglican movement, ACNA would like to establish ties with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Anglican Communion, has approved the use of the Episcopal Church's 1979 Book of Common Prayer, and has accepted women priests from the Episcopal Church into the new church.
The original generation of Continuing parishes in the U.S. were found mainly in metropolitan areas. Since the late 1990s, a number have appeared in smaller communities, often as a result of a division in the town's existing Episcopal parish(es) or mission(s). The 2007/08 Directory of Traditional Anglican and Episcopal Parishes, published by The Fellowship of Concerned Churchmen, contained information on over 900 parishes affiliated with either the Continuing Anglican churches or the Anglican realignment movement.
Other Anglican bodies not in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury include the Reformed Episcopal Church in the United States, which left the Episcopal Church in 1873 in opposition to the advance of Anglo-Catholicism; the Free Church of England, which was founded in 1844 for similar reasons; the Anglican Orthodox Church, another Low Church body that was founded in 1963, and the Orthodox Anglican Communion founded by the AOC in 1967. These churches are not universally considered to be Continuing Anglican churches because they were founded prior to the beginning of the Continuing Anglican movement of the 1970s; however, they interact with the Continuing churches on a number of levels and are similar to them in belief and practice.
The following is a list of churches commonly called "Continuing Anglican", with the approximate number of North American parishes shown in parentheses. Some also have affiliated churches in other countries.
The following is a list of seminaries associated with the Continuing Anglican movement:
