Conservative Anglicans in the United States are finding themselves living through an "extended Good Friday", mourning for The Episcopal Church.
The Anglican Communion Network, an orthodox group of Anglicans discontented with The Episcopal Church, began its fourth annual council meeting in Bedford, Texas, on Monday. Over 80 representatives opened the two-day meeting expressing disappointment in a church many had grown up in.
"Because our sense of order is such that we have always sought to be Christian first and Episcopalian next, we find ourselves on this present Way of the Cross," said the Rt Rev Robert Duncan, moderator of the Anglican Communion Network and Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, in his opening address.
A growing number of Episcopal parishes and leaders have left The Episcopal Church, citing dissatisfaction with the US Anglican branch's departure from Christian orthodoxy and Anglican tradition, particularly the 2003 consecration of an openly gay bishop.
In March, The Episcopal Church reaffirmed that it welcomes gays and lesbians as an "integral part" of the Church and rejected the request of primates (Anglican heads of the 38 Anglican provinces) to allow Anglican leaders outside the US branch to oversee US dioceses and those unable to accept the authority of the Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori.
Bishop Duncan said the denominational Church that raised him and ordained him "no longer had any room for me, or any like me".
"How bitter the rejection! How total my failure!" he said on Monday.
"Yes, we are all at different places on the Calvary journey as concerns our ministries in The Episcopal Church. But I suspect I can speak for all when I say that where we are is not where we had hoped to be," said Bishop Duncan, who believes their fourth annual meeting is being held amid a "seismic shift" in which more bishops and priests have left the US church body.
