African Anglican bishop backs breakaway California churches
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, August 23, 2004
Despite threats from their former bishop, two Biblically traditional former Episcopal congregations in the Diocese of Los Angeles held worship services Sunday under the authority of an African diocese. Attendance mushroomed in the wake of the media attention on the rift between orthodox Episcopalians and the liberal Episcopal Church (USA).
About 240 people attended the services at St. James’ Church in Newport Beach and All Saints’ Church in Long Beach, whose leaders voted to withdraw from the ECUSA and come under the care of the Diocese of Luwero in Uganda.
African Anglicans have been sympathetic to U.S. Episcopalians who were shocked by their denomination’s decision to approve the election of V. Gene Robinson as a bishop after Robinson had left his wife and family to live in a homosexual lifestyle.
The Rt. Rev. Jon Bruno, the Episcopal leader of the Diocese of Los Angeles, announced last week that he had taken steps to “inhibit” the pastors of the two congregations from the exercise of the ordained ministry. He also said in a “pastoral letter” that he would take steps to confiscate the property of the two congregations. The diocese paid to have Bruno’s letter published in The Los Angeles Times.
But the Rev. Praveen Bunyan of St. James’ told The Times that he didn’t read Bruno’s letter because the church no longer considers itself Episcopal and can now act independently of the order. “He’s not my bishop, why would I read it?” Bunyan said. “I’ve got better things to do.”
“The bishop of Los Angeles no longer has ecclesiastical authority over them, nor do the constitutions or canons of the Episcopal Church or the diocese of Los Angeles apply to them,” St. James’ officials said in a news release about the congregation’s clergy.
St. James’ officials also said that the church and the surrounding property is and has always been held by St. James’, a nonprofit corporation formed in 1949. “The diocese has no claim against it,” they wrote.
Bruno announced that he had written a protest letter to the bishop of the Diocese of Luwero and asked the EPUSA presiding bishop, John Griswold, and Archbishop of Canterbury to intervene in this “breach of trust and authority.”
He got a quick reply and no cooperation from the Most Rev. Henry Luke Orombi, archbishop of Uganda, who said the Rt. Rev. Evans Kisekka, bishop of Luweero, “has my full blessing and support in receiving the clergy from St. James’ Church, Newport Beach, and All Saints’ Church, Long Beach, California, USA. These clergy are canonically resident in the Luweero Diocese and are priests and deacons in good standing of the Church of Uganda.”
The archbishop reminded Bruno that the Anglican Church of Uganda had cut its ties with the ECUSA; intended to extended its solidarity to faithful U.S. Episcopalians; and would support and have communion with “clergy and parishes of the Anglican Communion Network who seek to uphold Biblical orthodoxy and the faith once delivered to the saints.”
In his pastoral letter, Bruno accused the ministers of the two California congregations of having “framed their leaving in terms I find unfair and false. They have stated that this Church is not orthodox Biblically or theologically. How wrong they are. I want you to know as your Bishop that I continue to uphold the vows I made on the day of my consecration ‘to guard the faith, unity and discipline of the Church.’ I believe today as I did when I was first ordained that the Scriptures contain all things necessary to salvation. Yet I will not let the Holy Scriptures be compromised by those who seek to make their literalist and simplistic interpretation the only legitimate one.”
The archbishop of Uganda responded, “We condemn any attempt on the part of the ECUSA Bishop of Los Angeles to depose our clergy serving at St. James Church, Newport Beach, and All Saints’ Church, Long Beach. He has no jurisdiction over them, and we will not recognize his actions. Furthermore, we appeal to other provinces within the Anglican Communion to recognize our clergy as priests and deacons in good standing.
“We are grieved by the continued unbiblical actions of the leadership of ECUSA that have led to its separation from the majority of the Anglican Communion. We especially note that the Bishop of Los Angeles recently presided at the blessing of a same-sex union of one of his priests. We pray for his repentance – and the repentance of all the ECUSA leadership who voted for the consecration of a man in an active homosexual relationship as bishop of New Hampshire – and their return to the historic faith and communion of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.”