The break comes in the latest sign of a rift in the US denomination over its ordination of a gay bishop.
WASHINGTON: Eight congregations in the Virginia Diocese of the Episcopal Church voted overwhelming to break away, the Church announced on Sunday, in the latest sign of a rift in the US denomination over its ordination of a gay bishop.
Two of the larger parishes, The Falls Church and Truro Church in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, voted to join the conservative Convocation of Anglicans in North America organisation, which is linked to the Episcopal Church of Nigeria.
The Nigerian church is headed by Peter Akinola, who has supported a proposed law in Nigeria that calls for prison terms for homosexual activity.
The breakaway is the latest challenge to Presiding US Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, the first woman to head the 2.4 million-member US Episcopal Church. She has been under fire from conservative Episcopalians because of her stand in favour of blessing same-sex unions and support for the 2003 consecration of an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire.
In addition to voting to join the breakaway Convocation of Anglicans of North America, The Falls Church and Truro Church congregations voted in favour of keeping parish property worth millions of dollars, the churches said. The Episcopal News Service said six other Virginia congregations announced on Sunday that their members had voted to sever ties with the Episcopal Church.
“A burden is being lifted,” Bishop Martyn Minns of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) said of the Virginia churches’ decision.
Minns characterised the road to separation as a painful family struggle that centred on such central issues as what it means to be a church and how to best love and care for homosexuals.
The breakaway churches called CANA, “a gift” that allows them to stay firmly connected to the rest of the Anglican Communion and its heritage.
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