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About the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC)
The Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) is a diocese in the Anglican Church in North America and part of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, a global fellowship of orthodox Anglicans. ANiC also remains affiliated with the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, one of 38 provinces in the global Anglican Communion. Members of ANiC are in the mainstream of global Anglicanism and are committed to remaining faithful to Holy Scripture and established Anglican doctrine and practices.
ANiC grew out of the Anglican Essentials movement in Canada and launched as an ecclesial (Church) structure in November 2007 under the jurisdiction of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone. In June 2009, with the formation of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), ANiC became a diocese in this new “Province-in-formation”. Currently, ANiC is an ACNA diocese while still retaining ecclesial ties to Archbishop Hector (Tito) Zavala and the Southern Cone. This dual “citizenship” helps ensure ANiC members’ undisputed inclusion in the global Anglican Communion and will continue until ACNA receives full recognition as a member of the Communion.
ANiC now numbers over 100 clergy members and 39 parishes and church plants with an average Sunday attendance of more than 3500. These congregations have elected to seek episcopal oversight from ANiC’s moderator, Bishop Donald Harvey, because they are determined to stay biblically faithful and true to historic Anglican doctrine and teaching and within mainstream Anglicanism.
About the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA)
In June 2009, bishops, clergy and lay delegates from across the United States and Canada met in Bedford, Texas to constitute the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) – an orthodox Anglican “province-in-formation” in North America. With the formation of the ACNA, the Anglican Network in Canada became one of what are now 20 dioceses. ACNA unites approximately over 600 orthodox Anglican congregations, with about 100,000 members throughout North America. ACNA is working to heal years of division within Anglicanism by uniting those committed to Scripture and traditional Anglican beliefs.
ACNA was formed in response to the request by a number of Primates (global Anglican leaders) and is already recognized as a legitimate Anglican Province by Primates representing the majority of active Anglicans worldwide.
About the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone
Archbishop Gregory Venables, Primate of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, responded in November 2007 to the needs of biblically faithful Canadian Anglicans for spiritual protection and care on an emergency and interim basis – pending a resolution to the crisis in the worldwide Anglican Communion.
Archbishop Venables is highly esteemed as an orthodox leader in the global Anglican Communion. He leads the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone which is one of 38 Provinces that make up the global Anglican Communion. It encompasses much of South America and includes Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Argentina.
By accepting the Primatial oversight of Archbishop Venables, Canadian Anglicans in ANiC were able to ensure full communion status with the global Church by being aligned with a Province which is in “full communion with the Church of England throughout the world” – unlike the Anglican Church of Canada, which is currently in a broken relationship with many of the largest Anglican Provinces.
Now, with the full blessing of Archbishop Venables, we temporarily hold “dual citizenship” – in both ACNA and the Southern Cone. In addition to ANiC being a diocese in ACNA, our bishops have retained their full membership in the House of Bishops of the Southern Cone to ensure there can be no question of our status as full members in the Anglican Communion.
About Anglicanism in Canada and around the world
While orthodox Anglicans are in a minority in Canada, they are in the majority worldwide. ANiC parishes stand firmly in the mainstream of global and historic Anglican teaching and orthodoxy. Our beliefs are shared by at least two-thirds of the 77 million Anglicans worldwide.
Since 2003, the Primates of the Anglican Communion repeatedly asked the Anglican Church of Canada to return to biblically faithful Anglican practice and teaching and to honour its own founding principles – summarized in the Solemn Declaration of 1893. They also called upon the Anglican Church of Canada (ACoC) to provide adequate episcopal oversight to dissenting parishes while the Communion addresses the resulting division, but to no avail. This forced distressed parishes in Canada to seek protection and Communion connection through ANiC.
Many international leaders have acknowledged their support and fellowship with ANiC. This was evidenced by the inclusion of ANiC representatives at the milestone Global Anglican Future Conference in Jerusalem in June 2008 where 1000+ delegates from around the world – many of whom were bishops – gathered and affirmed the Jerusalem Declaration.
We stand for historic Christian and Anglican teaching and want to faithfully preserve what has been entrusted to us by our forebears so we can pass it on, intact and unaltered, to future generations. We are determined to stay true to the established and historic tenets of Anglican Christianity and stay in full communion with the global Anglican Church.
About the crisis in the Anglican Church of Canada
Because the Anglican Church of Canada is seen to have departed from the faith of, and is “walking apart” from, the global Anglican Communion, parishes have felt compelled to align with ANiC and the Anglican Church in North America in order to uphold the trusts and founding principles upon which the churches were established and built.
By joining ANiC, parishioners and clergy are choosing to align with orthodox Communion-committed Anglicans worldwide and receive the care of a biblically faithful bishop, the Right Reverend Donald Harvey – who is a member of both the Anglican Church in North America College of Bishops and the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone House of Bishops.
Why parishes, clergy and parishioners are joining with ANiC
A number of Canadian Anglicans and parishes have chosen to realign with the ANiC and the Anglican Church in North America in order:
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To be faithful to historic Christian and global Anglican teaching. |
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To have the freedom to “further the mission of Christ in the Anglican tradition” |
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To be recognized as in “full communion with the Church of England throughout the world” per the Solemn Declaration 1893 - the founding statement of the ACoC. |
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To keep the faith of our spiritual forebears who built the parishes on established Christian convictions and historic Anglican practices. |
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Because they value their Anglican heritage and want to stay true to global and historic Anglican teaching and orthodoxy |
This is fundamentally about staying true to historic Christian teaching that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and that there is only one way to God through faith in Jesus Christ. The issue of the Bible’s teaching on sexual practice is merely the tip of the iceberg. The realignment of ANiC parishes with an orthodox Anglican Province was an act of conscience.
> Vancouver litigation
> See Communion-wide support for ANiC
> See Prayer preparation for parishes
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