A Church within a church for conservative Anglicans

[Wgw]

The thought occurred to me in another thread to organize something akin to the Order of the Holy Cross, the Anglican Benedictines founded in the 19th cenrury who were severely persecuted and oft imprisoned, yet who managed to do as much charitable work, perhaps as mich poor relief among the desperately poor Dickensenian world of South London as the highly unorthodox Salvation Army, while retaining the divinely ordained sacraments; they also managed to shift Anglican liturgics in an Orthodox-Catholic direction through the work of Dom Gregory Dix. They functioned as a Church within a Church, operating in the few parishes with sympathetic rectors against the wishes of nearly every bishop in the Provinces of York and Canterbury.

It seems to me a similiar organization, this time perhaps patterned after the original Dominican friars (St. Dominic was committed to peacefully evangelizing the Albigensians; it was his successors who decided it would be easier to use the rack and the auto da fe). The Dominicans had a Papal bull to preach anywhere, unlike the Franciscans who have it in their Rule to not operate without the consent of the Diocesan bishop (something ignored by their Province in Herzegovina regarding Medjugorje, but that is another matter). There are Anglican Franciscans in small numbers. If we had Anglican Dominicans however, they would be preaching and administering the sacraments with a purely scriptural mandate, operating as a rebel faction in the manner of the Order of the Holy Cross.

There is an advantage however such an order could offer to conservative comgregations: the ability to maintain access to their parishes. Sympathetic rectors might serve Morning Prayer on Sunday mornings, and then, operating as a nominally separate denomination leasing the parish for a token fee, the friars would take over and serve the Eucharist. In this manner, conservative Anglicans could worship in the parishes in which they were baptized, if those parishes still had conservative rectors, while not remaining in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury or the corrupt hierarchy of the non-GAFCON churches; this Anglican Dominican order would anathematize the liberal hierarchs of the Anglican church by name. I believe untainted holy orders might be obtainable through one of the Continuing Anglican jurisdictioms or perhaps the Old Catholic Union of Scranton.

Thoughts?

 

[John Shrewsbury]

I could see this happening. Many within Anglicanism are trying hard to keep the two wings together, so this could be a solution.

 

[Catherineanne]

Conservative Anglicans don't need a separate order, given that they/we are accepted as 100% mainstream Anglican. That is the whole point of recent debates; there are no primary, secondary or tertiary Anglicans, just Anglicans.

 

[Korah]

I'm welcome back, there will be no divorced (and remarried) or women bishops, no gay "marriages"?

 

[Wgw]

I'm welcome back, there will be no divorced (and remarried) or women bishops, no gay "marriages"?

If this order were launched, you would be welcomed back to its services operated at cooperating parishes.

The internal Angican Dominican order (actually if I really founded such an order I would like to dedicate it to St. Athanasius), which would have its own priests and bishops but operate in partnership with sympathetic rectors, assumimg any could be found, would only ordain men married to a virgin while themselves virginal, or else, more commonly, it being a religious order, celibate monastic priests, and the bishops would be exclusively monastic and cloistered, and their identities would be kept confidential to protect them from lawsuits and harassment from TEC, the C of E, et cetera. And anyone who ordained a woman to an office other than deaconness, or who ordained a remarried person even to the office of reader or verger, would be excommunicate, as would anyone who performed a gay marriage or other service blessimg homosexuality et cetera. And the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Presiding Bishop of the ECUSA, and their equivalents in the Canadian and New Zealand churches, would be anathema.

This entity might well be ecumenical in nature and also operate in other mainstream churches like the Methodist church...wherever a sympathetic pastor could be found, and might in the manner of John Wesley set up tents next to mainstream churches that had gone down a heretical route to promote thr apostolic faith. Dogmatically it would not be Cranmerian or even Laudian but would rather operate on the basis of those doctrines held in common between the Assyrian, Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, which is specficially a narrow range of Patristics stretching into the fifth century, and some post-schism saints like John of Damascus, Isaac the Syrian, Symeon the New Theologian, and Gregory Palamas whose sanctity has been universally recognized. The idea being to focus on the ancient faith of the Nicene and earlier Apostolic Fathers, the faith of Ss. Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Athanasius, Basil the Great, and Augustine, and not get caught up on post schismatic distractions like scholastic theology, Calvinism vs. Arminianism, and so on. The rule would be if we could not find at least three recognized saints of the ancient church preaching a doctrine, or if a majority of them preached against a doctrine, we would not preach it.

I am very deadly serious about this by the way and intend to discuss this idea with my Father Confessor this week. I hold memberships in the Methodist and Anglican churches by baptism and the number of times I took communion which I never terminated, although there may be something in the rubrics that would have terminated them for me when I allowed the Orthodox to chrismate me and received the Eucharist from them, although I would be shocked if that had been done given the effective open communion that exists even between mainline churches that arent in full communion, for example, the UMC and ECUSA.

 

[Wgw]

By the way, on the question of the name, there was an Order of St. Athanasius incorporated by an Episcopal nun in Florida, but besides herself I think sadly she never got any permanent vocations...she wanted to follow a strict Benedictine rule of enclosure. I am not sure if she is still alive.

 

[gordonhooker]

Please Lord help me now....

I was going to start a topic about why I only bother with this part of the forum, but I might have to rethink that...

 

[Wgw]

Conservative Anglicans don't need a separate order, given that they/we are accepted as 100% mainstream Anglican. That is the whole point of recent debates; there are no primary, secondary or tertiary Anglicans, just Anglicans.

The problem is that many traditionalist Anglicans have been evicted from their parishes, especially in some dioceses like that of Los Angeles, because they dont wamt to receive the Eucharist from priests in communion with bishops who do gay marriages or ordain women. Hence ACNA, and the Continuing Anglican jurisdictions like the Anglican Province of Christ the King, which in Chico where I once lived managed to buy the former Episcopal church downtown, and has a larger congregation than the 1970s era behemoth that serves the Episcopal Church (Brutalist architecture...shudder). At any rate, my plan is for an Order of the Holy Cross style entity that would exist within the Episcopal Church while performing its own sacraments. Tolerance is a two way street...broad church Anglicans should support such a group as acting as a counterweight to, for example, the Islamic prayer held in the National Cathedral. Also, one lamentable aspect of the ACNA and the Continuing Anglican groups is they are a bit less Latitudinarian than the historical Church of England...the continuing Anglicans formed into separate denominations for evangelical, reformed and high church Anglicans, for example.

 

[Catherineanne]

The problem is that many traditionalist Anglicans have been evicted from their parishes, especially in some dioceses like that of Los Angeles, because they dont wamt to receive the Eucharist from priests in communion with bishops who do gay marriages or ordain women. Hence ACNA, and the Continuing Anglican jurisdictions like the Anglican Province of Christ the King, which in Chico where I once lived managed to buy the former Episcopal church downtown, and has a larger congregation than the 1970s era behemoth that serves the Episcopal Church (Brutalist architecture...shudder). At any rate, my plan is for an Order of the Holy Cross style entity that would exist within the Episcopal Church while performing its own sacraments. Tolerance is a two way street...broad church Anglicans should support such a group as acting as a counterweight to, for example, the Islamic prayer held in the National Cathedral. Also, one lamentable aspect of the ACNA and the Continuing Anglican groups is they are a bit less Latitudinarian than the historical Church of England...the continuing Anglicans formed into separate denominations for evangelical, reformed and high church Anglicans, for example.

I can't comment on the US.

I wish you well, whatever you decide.

 

[Yardstick]

There is a Dominican order of Anglicans that are classified as a Christian Community (they follow a modified rule that does not require celibacy). I do not think they are as conservative of a group as you are interested in though.

With that said, I don't really understand what the point of a parachurch organization is if it completely rejects the authority of the bishops in charge of it. Why be part of a Church who you can't in good conscience receive the sacraments from? Why not join ACNA?

However, it sounds like the Society of the Holy Cross is the most similar to what you are looking for: http://www.sscamericas.org/

 

[Albion]

Tactically speaking, your idea makes sense. However, it makes sense mainly if such traditionalist Anglicans think that TEC or the ACofCanada can be turned around. There is little reason to think that's going to happen OR that any traditionalist religious order would be allowed to function openly as a church within the church by the higher-ups who are on the other side of all the key issues. My immediate reaction, FWIW, was that the more effective course would be to do what you allude to in this post and which many Anglicans have already done--join one of the Continuing Anglican churches or ACNA.

The problem is that many traditionalist Anglicans have been evicted from their parishes, especially in some dioceses like that of Los Angeles, because they dont wamt to receive the Eucharist from priests in communion with bishops who do gay marriages or ordain women. Hence ACNA, and the Continuing Anglican jurisdictions like the Anglican Province of Christ the King, which in Chico where I once lived managed to buy the former Episcopal church downtown, and has a larger congregation than the 1970s era behemoth that serves the Episcopal Church (Brutalist architecture...shudder). At any rate, my plan is for an Order of the Holy Cross style entity that would exist within the Episcopal Church while performing its own sacraments. Tolerance is a two way street...broad church Anglicans should support such a group as acting as a counterweight to, for example, the Islamic prayer held in the National Cathedral. Also, one lamentable aspect of the ACNA and the Continuing Anglican groups is they are a bit less Latitudinarian than the historical Church of England...the continuing Anglicans formed into separate denominations for evangelical, reformed and high church Anglicans, for example.

 

[Wgw]

There is a Dominican order of Anglicans that are classified as a Christian Community (they follow a modified rule that does not require celibacy). I do not think they are as conservative of a group as you are interested in though.

With that said, I don't really understand what the point of a parachurch organization is if it completely rejects the authority of the bishops in charge of it. Why be part of a Church who you can't in good conscience receive the sacraments from? Why not join ACNA?

However, it sounds like the Society of the Holy Cross is the most similar to what you are looking for: http://www.sscamericas.org/

Thank you for the reply.

My idea wasnt to create a Dominican order per se but something like it in so far as operating in dioceses without regard to wherher or not the bishop approved. Albeit instead of as a matter of Papal privilege, rather, because of the view that the bishops are delinquent in their episcopal duties through failing to preserve orthodoxy or by maintaining communion with heterodox bishops.

Strictly speaking, the idea is to provide an organization to minister to conservative Anglicans and provide supplementsl services inparishes where the rector allows it, which would be based on a neo Patristic theology rather than a reformed or Anglo Papalist theology. The sympathetic rectors themselves would not generally be allowed to receive communion if theynattended the services, unless they were within one year of their mandatory retirement and took a vow not to concelebrate with their bishop again before retiring, or receive the sacraments from the mainline hierarchy.

The closest ecclesiological comparison might be the Alternative Synod of the Church of Bulgaria or the SSPX.

 

[Yardstick]

Strictly speaking, the idea is to provide an organization to minister to conservative Anglicans and provide supplementsl services inparishes where the rector allows it, which would be based on a neo Patristic theology rather than a reformed or Anglo Papalist theology. The sympathetic rectors themselves would not generally be allowed to receive communion if theynattended the services, unless they were within one year of their mandatory retirement and took a vow not to concelebrate with their bishop again before retiring, or receive the sacraments from the mainline hierarchy.

I still don't understand what the point is. This organization is essentially breaking communion with the bishops of the Church. Why not just join up with one of the other conservative Anglican groups that has already broken communion?

 

[Albion]

Thank you for the reply.

My idea wasnt to create a Dominican order per se but something like it in so far as operating in dioceses without regard to wherher or not the bishop approved.

"Something like it." Hmm. That would be, I assume, an association for conservative Episcopalians (there have been many), but one that had the additional quality of being like Third Order Dominicans or Franciscans, etc. According to what you've said above, it would be clandestine or at least unauthorized by any member's bishop or TEC itself.

If that's right, I would think that the other course that occurred to several of us here--simply to join an alternate church like the Anglican Catholic Church or the Anglican Church in North America--would be the better course. Why do you think it is not?

The closest ecclesiological comparison might be the Alternative Synod of the Church of Bulgaria or the SSPX.

I don't know about the first one, but isn't the SSPX now a completely separate church body (from the RCC)?

 

[Wgw]

I still don't understand what the point is. This organization is essentially breaking communion with the bishops of the Church. Why not just join up with one of the other conservative Anglican groups that has already broken communion?

The goal would be to form an entity that unlike the others would consciously seek to integrate itself into the parish life of conservative Episcopal parishes, thus preventing schism and the loss of churches by congregations by providing auxilliary priests not in communion with corrupt Episcopal bishops to administer the sacraments alongside the Episcopal diocesan clergy.

So a conservative Episcopal priest and a priest from this order might concelebrate Morning Prayer or Evensong, and then separately but concurrently celebrate the Eucharist on separate altars, with the traditionalists receiving from the friar, and other members from the diocesan priest. The diocesan priest could concelebrate the Eucharist with the friar furthermore if he took a vow not to concelebrate the liturgy with his bishop, not to receive communion from his bishop, and not to attend a pontifical liturgy the bishop might celebrate at his parish. But the friars would not commune unrepentant adulterers, fornicators, homosexuals, abortionists, euthanasiasts, supporters of the same, or female clergy above the rank of deacon(ness), or anyone who agreed with the Black Rubric of the 1662 BCP or the 39 Articles; they would be strictly Anglo Catholic in the sense of following the Ecumenical Councils, the Early Church Fathers and the ancient Creeds only (sans the filioque, as per the Scottish Non Juring Episcopalians).

A BCP edition would be produced from the text of probably the 1962 Canadian book, which is in the public domain (or rather is licensed without any restrictions at all by the Prayer Book Society of Canada, which bought the copyright from the ACC), has the benefit of Dom Gregory Dix's scholarship and the slightly more elegant English form of Morning and Evening Prayer, with additional canticles in traditional English from the 1979 BCP, and with among other things something like the summary of the apostolic faith from Against Heresies by St. Irenaeus, and the Didache replacing the Catechism and 39 Articles. There would also be certain ancient anaphorae like that of St. James to replace the alternate Eucharistic prayers of the 1979 BCP.

 

[Wgw]

"Something like it." Hmm. That would be, I assume, an association for conservative Episcopalians (there have been many), but one that had the additional quality of being like Third Order Dominicans or Franciscans, etc. According to what you've said above, it would be clandestine or at least unauthorized by any member's bishop or TEC itself.

If that's right, I would think that the other course that occurred to several of us here--simply to join an alternate church like the Anglican Catholic Church or the Anglican Church in North America--would be the better course. Why do you think it is not?


I don't know about the first one, but isn't the SSPX now a completely separate church body (from the RCC)?

The SSPX is not formally schismatic, the Vatican has admitted as much. The relationship is complex and the raison d'etre for the Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei"; the SSPX is not schismatic but in an irregular canonical situation and the function of the Ecclesia Dei is to prevent a full blown schism, and reconcile the SSPX. Which is a tall order when many diocesan bishops hate the Latin Mass and all it stands for and the SSPX by extension. I myself dislike the SSPX but love the old Latin Mass. I am not Catholic however.

In France, where all the historic churches are owned by the government, some are under SSPX control, including a particularly handsome church in Paris.

 

[Albion]

The SSPX is not formally schismatic, the Vatican has admitted as much. The relationship is complex and the raison d'etre for the Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei"; the SSPX is not schismatic but in an irregular canonical situation and the function of the Ecclesia Dei is to prevent a full blown schism, and reconcile the SSPX. Which is a tall order when many diocesan bishops hate the Latin Mass and all it stands for and the SSPX by extension. I myself dislike the SSPX but love the old Latin Mass. I am not Catholic however.

In France, where all the historic churches are owned by the government, some are under SSPX control, including a particularly handsome church in Paris.

That's interesting, but I can't imagine conservative Episcopalians thinking THAT is a good model for their own future...or that TEC would, for even a moment, permit it.

A BCP edition would be produced from the text of probably the 1962 Canadian book, which is in the public domain (or rather is licensed without any restrictions at all by the Prayer Book Society of Canada, which bought the copyright from the ACC), has the benefit of Dom Gregory Dix's scholarship and the slightly more elegant English form of Morning and Evening Prayer, with additional canticles in traditional English from the 1979 BCP, and with among other things something like the summary of the apostolic faith from Against Heresies by St. Irenaeus, and the Didache replacing the Catechism and 39 Articles. There would also be certain ancient anaphorae like that of St. James to replace the alternate Eucharistic prayers of the 1979 BCP.

Honestly, it sounds like you're describing your own idea of a perfect church, not what conservative Episcopalians or Canadian Anglicans would want or, for that matter, what would serve them well.

 

[mark46]

That's interesting, but I can't imagine conservative Episcopalians thinking THAT is a good model for their own future...or that TEC would, for even a moment, permit it.


Honestly, it sounds like you're describing your own idea of a perfect church, not what conservative Episcopalians or Canadian Anglicans would want or, for that matter, what would serve them well.

This seems right.

This very conservative order would need to be accepted by the hierarchy of TEC. I don't see that happening anytime soon. After all, while this "rogue" order would not be under the bishops (which seems very wrong), it still would need to obey the canons of TEC, including women's ordination, the coming gay marriages, and non-discrimination against gays and transvestites in all ministries and hiring.

 

[Korah]

Well, I like it. Doesn't mean I'll join even if it does come to be because I don't see it as likely to come near enough to my location to be feasible. Yes, deleting the 39 Articles and Catechism is a real winner for me. Surely no Athanasian Creed either? (A late Latin construct.)

 

[Albion]

This seems right.

This very conservative order would need to be accepted by the hierarchy of TEC. I don't see that happening anytime soon. After all, while this "rogue" order would not be under the bishops (which seems very wrong), it still would need to obey the canons of TEC, including women's ordination, the coming gay marriages, and non-discrimination against gays and transvestites in all ministries and hiring.

There certainly wouldn't be rogue priests as described a few posts ago dropping in to say Mass, etc. and cobbled-up Books of Common Prayer made just for the fraternity or friars to use, all completely outside of any oversight beyond the order.