Dear sionnsar,
What's happening to most of these parishes?
I've seen some cases where "St. Alban's Episcopal Church" seems to sort of disappear in a twinkling, to open up across the street from the old church building as "St. Edward's Anglican Church, overseen by the Province of Uganda."
Are others just staying as "St. Alban's" and removing the "Episcopal" (and possibly adding "Anglican")?
Are they mostly being permitted to keep their churches, property, money?
With six parishes in one diocese, that suggests that there might be hundreds, nationwide. Do you have a sense of the magnitude of all this?
Are many going to the TAC or other bodies?
Here's a question - is the TAC in communion with the Anglican Communion in general, or with some parts of it? Didn't an Anglican bishop consecrate some TAC bishops a while back?
It's all quite confusing to me!
Thanks,
sitetest
As a member of one of these churches, I do know a little about what's going on. In most cases, there's an effort to remain with the property through a settlement of some sort with the Diocese of Florida (which covers Jacksonville, Gainesville, Tallahasee and St Augustine). It should be pointed out that the Diocese does not allow gay marriage or any of that ilk, and Bp Howard has said that he opposes that stuff. Unfortunately, the Diocese and Bp Howard have chosen to walk with ECUSA while it walks apart from the rest of the Communion. The parishes mentioned in the article have decided that they will not walk with ECUSA and have made (or are making) the decision to walk apart from ECUSA which means walking apart from the Diocese. Bp Howard understands (at least he says so) what these parishes are doing and why, and he is working with them on a case by case basis.
Sometimes parish bodies are moving en masse, as you suggest. In others just the parish members move. In some of the former cases they are keeping the properties, in the latter cases obviously not.
To my recollection few, if any (I simply do not recall), keep their name and change the affiliation. None do it quietly, although I have personally seen one church quietly drop the word "Episcopal" from everything it possibly can, including the sign out front. (My guess is that they're preparing for a move once the battles are joined.)
As to the magnitude of this, no, I don't have a good sense myself. But there are others elsewhere, such as the church I previously noted. I see little organised "first wave" movement such as described here, only in three or maybe four places, but independent departures have been going on all over -- noted once, then forgotten. On the other hand, there are entire dioceses preparing to move.
I expect to see the pace pick up, but countervailing that are the departures of individuals which diminishes the numbers and strength of those pushing for whole-church departures. If GC2006 does not result in the final showdown I expect to see the rate of departures rise dramatically. (Thhis is just my guess.)
As to where they are going... the ones being noted most publicly on the blogs are going to the Southern Cone. Those that are going to the Continuing churches are little noted, but there is likely a bias in the blogworld here.
I have little knowledge of how many are going to the TAC.
The TAC is not in communion with the worldwide Anglican Communion, nor with other Continuing churches. Yes, there was quite a flap over the consecration of a couple of TAC bishops, one in Australia and one in North America, a while back. As I recall, though, it was because they tried to have ties to two juridictions.