Anglican Church of Canada
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The Anglican Church of Canada (the "ACC") (l'Église anglicane du Canada) is the Canadian branch of the Anglican Communion. It formally consists of 800,000 members worshipping in 29 dioceses and one grouping of parishes in the Central Interior of British Columbia, although over 2 million Canadians, or 6.9% of the population, declared themselves as Anglican in the 2001 Census. As a proportion of the population at large and in particular as with the Anglican Church of Canada's fellow church of the mainstream anglophone majority in Canada, the United Church of Canada, Anglican numbers in Canada have been steadily decreasing. According to a recent report delivered to the House of Bishops, the Church is losing 13,000 members each year and faces the statistical probability of extinction by the mid-21st century.[1] Such decline may be due to a number of factors, including:
- (1) Canada's very high immigration from countries not having a substantial liberal Protestant population;
- (2) discomfort on the part of conservative churchgoers with the denomination's increasingly liberal stances on such issues as homosexuality and biblical interpretation;
- (3) the eclipse of the institution of Sunday School, with fewer children being brought up within the faith;
- (4) the involvement of the Church in the Canadian residential school system; and
- (5) a wider acceptance in the general community of express lack of any religious affiliation: the unchurched are decreasingly likely to nominate "Anglican" as denomination of default.
Moreover, the number of actual participants in Anglican worship is likely far less than census self-declarants. As a result, the scale of decreasing membership has recently been confirmed as being greater than previously realized. It is uncertain whether the Church is able to reverse that trend.[2]
The Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada is the Most Rev. Andrew Hutchison. He will retire in 2007. The chief governing body of the church is the General Synod, which meets every three years and consists of lay people, priests, and bishops from each diocese. The church is in full communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada under the Waterloo Declaration of 2001. Prior to 1955, the Church was formally styled the Church of England in Canada and in general parlance was called "the English Church." [3] The church acquired its current French-language name in 1989. Prior to this, General Synod had adopted "l'Église Episcopale du Canada" in 1977 and amended the canons to reflect this in 1983.[4]
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[edit] History
[edit] Origins of the ACC in British North America
The first clergy of the pre-Reformation English Church arrived in Canada as chaplains on John Cabot's expedition in 1497. The first post-Reformation Anglican Eucharist on what is now Canadian territory was celebrated in 1578 by Robert Wolfall, who was chaplain to Martin Frobisher's expedition to the Arctic. The Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in St. John's, Newfoundland is the oldest Anglican parish in Canada, founded in 1699 in response to a petition drafted by the Anglican townsfolk of St. John's and sent to the Bishop of London, the Rt. Rev. Henry Compton.
Members of the Church of England established the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in 1701 which provided missionaries to Canada until 1940. Another Anglican mission, the Church Missionary Society was established in 1799, and sent missionaries to try to convert Canada's First Nations until World War I. The Church of England in Canada established numerous residential schools which sought to assimilate native peoples into British concepts of civilization.
[edit] United Empire Loyalists, establishment and the Family Compact
The Anglican Church was a dominant feature of the compact governments that dominated the colonies in British North America. Adherents of the Church of England were also numerous among the United Empire Loyalists who fled to Canada after the American Revolution.
After the conquest of Quebec and the American Revolution, many leading Anglicans argued for the Church of England to become the established church in the Canadian colonies. The Constitutional Act of 1791 was promulgated, and interpreted to mean that the Church was the established Church in the Canadas. The Church of England was established by law in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. In Lower Canada (now Quebec), the presence of a Roman Catholic majority made establishment in that province politically unwise. Bishop John Strachan of Toronto was a particular champion of the prerogatives of the Church of England.
The secular history of Canada depicts Bishop Strachan as something of a bête noire as to the aspirations of Upper Canada (now Ontario) farmers and bourgeoisie (who are heroes of secular Canadian history) vis-à-vis the Family Compact, notwithstanding his considerable role in promoting education, as founder of Kings College (now the University of Toronto) and Trinity College in the University of Toronto. The Clergy reserves, land that had been reserved for use by the Protestant clergy, became a major issue in the mid-19th century. Anglicans argued that the land was meant for their exclusive use, while other Protestant denominations demanded that it be divided among them.
In Upper Canada, leading dissenters such as Methodist minister Egerton Ryerson — in due course a minister of education in the government of Ontario and nowadays amply memorialised in numerous Ryerson United Churches and Ryerson University in Toronto — would argue against establishment. Following the Upper Canada Rebellion and the Durham Report and establishment of responsible government in the 1840s, the unpopularity of the Anglican-dominated Family Compact made establishment a moot point. The Church was disestablished in Nova Scotia in 1850 and Upper Canada in 1854. By the time of Confederation in 1867, the Church of England was disestablished throughout British North America.
[edit] Autonomy
Until the 1830s, the Anglican church in Canada was treated as the preserve of the Church of England: bishops were appointed by the church in England, and funding for the church came from the British Parliament. The first Canadian synods were established in the 1850s, giving the Canadian church a degree of self-government. As a result of the Privy Council decision of Long v. Gray in 1861, all Anglican churches in colonies of the British Empire became self-governing. Even so, the first General Synod for all of Canada was not held until 1893. In that meeting, Robert Machray was chosen as the Canadian church's first Primate.
[edit] Indian residential schools
During the 19th century the federal Crown delegated the operation of Indian residential schools to the ACC and Roman Catholic religious orders (with some minimal involvement by the Methodist and Presbyterian Churches of Canada as well). In the 1980s numerous tort claims were brought by former students of such schools against both the Crown and church organisations in respect of abuse by sexually disordered church personnel in such institutions and to a lesser extent in respect of a perception that such schools had been insensitive to issues of preservation of aboriginal culture and identity.
The claims were ultimately comprehensively settled but the damage to the morale of the ACC has yet to be entirely resolved: the Diocese of Cariboo was obliged to declare bankruptcy and was liquidated — its current manifestation is as "the Anglican parishes of the central interior," with episcopal oversight by an assistant bishop to the metropolitan Archbishop of the Province of British Columbia and the Yukon. (Its now-unofficial cathedral of St Paul in Kamloops continues to be deemed a cathedral, its rector being styled "very reverend," as a dean. [5] ). The Diocese of Qu'Appelle and the General Synod of the ACC were in considerable danger of the same fate until settlement of the claims was reached on a national basis. Archbishop Michael Peers took a major role on behalf of the ACC with respect to reaching a settlement with the federal Crown, which was the defendant of the first instance and which counter-claimed against the ACC and Roman Catholic religious orders. He offered the ACC's apology to aboriginal people and delayed his retirement until 2004 when his successor could come to the primacy with the issue also retired.
[edit] Structure
[edit] Primate
The Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada — originally the "Primate of All Canada" in echo of the titles of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York in England and to distinguish the national church from the ecclesiastical Province of Canada (Quebec and the Atlantic Provinces) — is elected by the general synod. Primates hold the ex officio rank of archbishop; in 1931 the General Synod approved a recommendation that a fixed primatial see (as of the Archbishop of Canterbury) be established[6] and in 1955 it was recommended that "a small See [be created] in the vicinity of Ottawa to which the Dioceses of The Arctic, Moosonee, Keewatin and Yukon would be attached, forming a fifth Province." However, General Synod rejected the proposal in 1959 and in 1969 "the Canon on the Primacy was amended to require the Primate to maintain an office at the national headquarters of the Church, with a pastoral relationship to the whole Church, but no fixed Primatial See"[7] as with Presiding Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the USA and unlike Primates of England, Australia and elsewhere. In consequence, Primates of the Anglican Church of Canada are not diocesan bishops and generally do not carry out ordinary episcopal functions; they originally held office for life but in recent years they have retired at the age of 70.
In recent decades Primates of the Anglican Church of Canada have intermittently held a considerable place in public life. In particular, Archbishop Ted Scott, who was a President of the World Council of Churches, was a member of a Commonwealth Eminent Persons committee in respect of the devolution of power from the white-only government of South Africa to a fully democratic government.
Archbishop Michael Peers continued the close association of his predecessor Archbishop Scott with the freedom movement in South Africa and was thrust into a high profile in Canadian national life when he insisted that the ACC should shoulder its responsibilities as to the Indian Residential Schools issue and when he protested at what he described as the downplaying of Christian witness in the official commemoration of events of national importance.[8]
There have been twelve primates in the history of the church. The current Primate is the Most Rev. Andrew Hutchison.
[edit] General Synod
Each diocese has a dioceson synod and each province a provincial one. General Synod is the denomination's national parliament: it consists of the Primate and the three houses, of bishops, clergy and laity. Members of the houses of clergy and laity are elected from among members of the diocesan synods.
[edit] Dioceses and provinces
The ACC is divided into four ecclesiastical provinces, 29 dioceses and one grouping of churches in British Columbia that was formerly the Diocese of Cariboo, until it was dissolved in response to awards of damages in tort against it in respect of the residential schools issue that were beyond its means. This area of churches, while not a diocese, is now collectively referred to as the Anglican Parishes of the Central Interior and is served by a bishop coadjutor to the metropolitan of British Columbia. [9] Each province has its own archbishop, known as the Metropolitan, and each diocese has a bishop, although there are no metropolitical dioceses (or archdioceses) as such; a metropolitan is "Archbishop of [his or her own diocese, whatever that may be]."
[edit] Ecumenical relations
The ACC is a member of the World Council of Churches and Archbishop Ted Scott was a president of that body; the ACC has been an active participant in the Canadian Council of Churches from its establishment immediately after the Second World War. Through the 1960s the ACC was involved in talks with the United Church of Canada and the Disciples of Christ with a view to institutional union, in the course of which a comprehensive Basis of Union was formulated and a joint Anglican-United Church hymnal produced in 1971. Ultimately such talks foundered when the Houses of Laity and Clergy voted in favour of union but the House of Bishops vetoed it.
More recently the ACC established full intercommunion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada in 2001. All baptised Christians are welcome to receive Holy Communion in Canadian Anglican churches, in accordance with the resolution in favour of open communion at the 1968 Lambeth Conference.
[edit] Liturgy and service books
See also Book of Common Prayer#Canada
In 1918 and 1962 the ACC produced successive authoritative Canadian Prayer Books, substantially based on the 1662 English Book of Common Prayer; both were conservative revisions consisting largely of minor editorial emendations of archaic diction. In 1985 the Book of Alternative Services was issued, officially not designated to supersede but to be used alongside the 1962 Prayer Book. It is a more thoroughgoing modernising of Canadian Anglican liturgies, containing considerable borrowings from Lutheran, Church of England, American Episcopalian and liberal Roman Catholic service books; it was received with general enthusiasm and in practice has largely superseded the Book of Common Prayer, although the BCP remains the official Liturgy of the Church in Canada. A French translation, Le Recueil des Prières de la Communauté Chrétienne, was published in 1967.
The rise of Book of Alternative Services preference among clergy has been countered by the founding of the Prayer Book Society of Canada, which strives to promote the use of the traditional book. The tension between adherents of the BCP and advocates of the BAS has contributed to a sense of alienation within the Church on the part of liturgical traditionalists, and has contributed to an element of schism within the Church. Nevertheless, in the latter half of the 20th century liturgies steadily drifted into greater homogeneity across the ACC and former disjunctions among high-, low- and broad-church sensibilities became blurred.
[edit] The "liberal" ACC and the Anglican Communion
In recent years the ACC has been a leading force for reform within the Anglican Communion. In the 1970s, Primate Ted Scott argued at the Lambeth Conference in favour of women's ordination. The Anglican Church of Canada ordained its first female priest in 1976 and its first female bishop in 1993. More recently, in 2002, the New Westminster Diocese permitted the blessing of same-sex unions by Vancouver parishes which had sought such licence[10], a move that was condemned by some Canadian Anglicans and some churches in the world wide Anglican Communion and has posed the threat of schism.
Several conservative national Anglican churches, notably the Churches of Uganda and Nigeria, have declared themselves out of communion with the ACC as a result of their disquiet with the ACC's perceived excessive inclusivity with respect to gay clergy and laity and in particular over the blessing of same-sex unions in New Westminster. Bishop Ingham of New Westminster has agreed "neither to encourage nor to intiate" same-sex blessings, but stopped short of declaring a moratorium.[11]The concern around the action of the Diocese of New Westminster, along with the action of the Episcopal Church of the U.S.A. (in which an openly gay priest living in a same-sex relationship was made a bishop) resulted in the commissioning of the Windsor Report. In 1992 an Anglican priest, James Ferry, was brought before a Bishops' Court for being in a same-sex relationship. Ferry was stripped of his licence to preach and "inhibited" from practising other Anglican clerical functions. Ferry left the church and joined the Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto; in 1998, Ferry was partially reinstated. (In 2006 Archbishop Terence Finlay, who had presided over the proceedings against Ferry, was himself disciplined by his successor as bishop of Toronto for assisting in a same-sex wedding in a Toronto United Church, saying, "I think our church has waited a long time and has discussed this issue over and over and in this particular situation, time just run out for me." [12]) As of 2004, the ACC has resolved neither the question of ordaining non-celibate gay and lesbian clergy nor the question of blessing same-sex unions; thus far blessing of same-sex unions has been permitted only in seven parishes in the Diocese of New Westminster.
[edit] ACC cathedrals and notable parishes
[edit] Cathedrals
Most Anglican cathedrals in Canada are modest parish churches and it is only the cathedrals of Toronto, Halifax, St. John's, and Victoria which have significant dimensions or imposing designs, though even they are modest by European or even Australian standards. Diocesan services are often held in Roman Catholic or United churches because of the limited seating in most Anglican cathedrals.
[edit] Notable parishes of the ACC
The Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Toronto was the home parish of the organist and composer Healey Willan, who composed much of his liturgical music for its choirs. It is the inspiration for the parish of St Aiden in Robertson Davies's novel The Cunning Man. St. Thomas', Toronto, was at one time the parish church of the English accompanist Gerald Moore, who was an assistant organist there. The hymn tune "Bellwoods" by James Hopkirk, sung world-wide to the hymn "O day of God draw nigh," by the Canadian theologian Robert B.Y. Scott, was named for St. Matthias Bellwoods, in Toronto, where Hopkirk was organist.
St Anne's, Toronto, is a notable tourist attraction, being "a scale model of Saint Sophia in Istanbul that was decorated in the 1920s by members of the Group of Seven and associates."[13] St John's, Elora, is a concert venue of the Elora Music Festival; its choir, also known as the Elora Festival Singers, is the professional core of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir and its CDs are available around the world. St Bartholomew's, Ottawa, located near to Rideau Hall and also known as the Guards Chapel has been the place of worship for Governors General of the the Canadas and then Canada since 1866, before the wider confederation of the British North American colonies. The Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, Quebec City, is by far the oldest Anglican cathedral in Canada, having been "built from 1800 to 1804; it was constructed according to drawings done by Captain William Hall and Major William Robe, officers of the military engineering corps of the British Army, stationed in Quebec City."[14] Christ's Church Cathedral, Hamilton is the oldest cathedral of Upper Canada, its present building having originally been constructed in 1842, though its curious, evolutionary, contruction history has left none of the original fabric extant.[15]
[edit] Notes
- ^ http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?id=2243.
- ^ http://www.anglicanjournal.com/opinion/news/article/declining-church-membership-is-an-issue/.
- ^ Corporations Canada, the agency of the federal government which has jurisdiction over federally incorporated companies, ruled on 12 September 2005 that a group of dissident Anglicans may not use the name "Anglican Communion in Canada," holding that in Canada the term "Anglican Communion" is associated only with the Anglican Church of Canada, being the Canadian denomination which belongs to that international association. The breakaway group now styles itself as the Anglican Coalition in Canada.
- ^ Anglican Church of Canada Handbook
- ^ "Spirit lives on in erstwhile BC diocese," Anglican Journal.
- ^ Anglican Handbook Appendix D: Historical Notes
- ^ >http://www.anglican.ca/handbook/320_ap_t.pdf Anglican Handbook Appendix D: Historical Notes]
- ^ http://www.anglican.ca/news/news.php?newsItem=2002-01-08_xx.news "Response to Primate's New Year's Sermon," Anglican Journal (original article no longer online)
- ^ The former cathedral in Kamloops, British Columbia, continues unofficially to be deemed a cathedral and its rector styled "very reverend" as a dean.
- ^ http://www.samesexblessing.info/.
- ^ http://www.samesexblessing.info/cnurse/DotNetNuke/Default.aspx?tabid=196
- ^ http://www.anglicanjournal.com/100/article/archbishop-disciplined-for-performing-same-sex-marriage/
- ^ St Anne's, Toronto website
- ^ Website of Holy Trinity Cathedral, Quebec City
- ^ Marion MacRae and Anthony Adamson, Hallowed Walls: Church Architecture of Upper Canada (Toronto: Clarke, Irwin, 1975), pp. 87-88.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Anglican Church of Canada official site
- Historical documents on Anglicanism in Canada
- Anglicans in Canada — historical resources
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