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The Episcopal Church in Connecticut (ECCT) has sold its property at 35 Harris Road, Avon, former home to Christ Episcopal Church, to the Farmington Valley American Muslim Center, Inc. (FVAMC). The sale, for $1.1 million, was completed on Oct. 21. The building was vacated after the congregation voted in 2012 to dissolve as a parish and close by the end of that year. The following spring, Bishop Ian T. Douglas and other ECCT staff hosted a meeting of community leaders and interested residents to discern how the property could best be used “as an asset to God’s mission of restoration...

Like many divorces, this one began with small tiffs that escalated. After years of arguing over theology and administrative control, disputes among Episcopalians boiled over in 2012 when the local bishop and a majority of parishes left the national church. The aftermath flows Tuesday into the courtroom of a circuit judge in St. George who will decide the future of more than $500 million in church property - although her ruling is likely to be appealed. As the much-anticipated trial begins, two men will be in court, each in Anglican bishop purple, each claiming to be the rightful leader of...

The Washington National Cathedral is welcoming the first openly transgendered Episcopal priest to its altar this month. The Rev. Cameron Partridge, a transgendered man, is set to give the June 22 sermon at the cathedral, a fixture in the D.C. skyline and one of the nation’s most well-known houses of worship. “We at Washington National Cathedral are striving to send a message of love and affirmation, especially to LGBT youth who suffer daily because of their gender identity or sexual orientation,” Mr. Hall said. “We want to proclaim to them as proudly and unequivocally as we can: Your gender identity...

Bishop Gene Robinson, whose 2003 election as the first openly gay Episcopal bishop rocked Anglican Communion, has announced his divorce from his longtime partner and husband. Robinson, who retired in 2013 as the Bishop of New Hampshire, and his partner of 25 years, Mark Andrew, were married in a private civil union in 2008. The announcement was made public Saturday (May 3) in a statement to the Diocese of New Hampshire. “As you can imagine, this is a difficult time for us — not a decision entered into lightly or without much counseling,” Robinson wrote in a letter. “We ask...

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — The first openly gay bishop in the Anglican church has announced he is divorcing his husband.

Obama pulled a surprise move Monday at the White House’s Easter Prayer Breakfast when he selected Gene Robinson to lead the closing prayer. Robinson is famously known as the first openly gay Episcopal bishop. Talking Points Memo’s Tom Kludt spotted the following tweet from Robinson, who was in attendance: Bishop Gene Robinson @BishopGRobinson POTUS "preaches" at the Easter prayer breakfast. Then, out of the blue, asks ME to close with prayer. OMG! #privilege Robinson, 66, became diocesan bishop of New Hampshire in March 2004. He retired in January 2013 and is currently a senior fellow at the progressive Center for...

Well, that didn't take long. As my colleague Edward Malnick reports, the first gay Church of England priest – a canon, no less – today married his boyfriend. Canon Jeremy Pemberton, 58, a divorced hospital chaplain and father of five, wed his long-term partner Laurence Cunnington, 51. We're not told where, but obviously it wasn't in an C of E church. That's against the law. But they may well be able to have their marriage blessed in church because that's only "against the rules" as opposed to illegal.Campaigners predicted that Canon Pemberton would be the first of many. I think they're...

SAGINAW, MI — As a federal judge weighs Michigan's gay marriage ban, the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Eastern Michigan issued a statement supporting the overturn of the ban. Bishop Todd Ousley on Thursday, March 13, stated that ending the ban, which U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman may do after hearing eight days of testimony during a trial for a Hazel Park couple's case against the state, would extend “justice and equality to all of God's children.” “My own experiences with same-sex couples and the experiences in communities and congregations across our diocese have show that there is holy...

US AMBASSADOR to Australia John Berry has married his long-term partner of 17 years in a private same-sex ceremony in Washington D.C. The 54-year-old former head of the Office of Personnel Management - which oversees the US public service - is the first openly gay US ambassador to serve in a Group of 20 nation and the highest ranking openly gay man in United States history. In a short statement, Mr Berry confirmed the nuptials, telling news.com.au, "John Berry and Curtis Yee, partners of 17 years, were formally married on Saturday August 10, at St Margaret's Episcopal Church in Washington...

At my small Episcopal church yesterday, we prayed for all those "killed" in the "tragic" Boston Marathon bombing. That was bad enough--those people were murdered and it was anything but a tragedy. Then we had to pray for the dead terrorist--which I refused to do. How unbiblical can you get. The dead terrorist didn't repent before his death. His soul went straight to Hell. Praying for him is basically praying for evil if you ask me. We also prayed for the still living terrorist. I can see that--he's still alive and can repent. But we didn't pray for the Holy...

[Episcopal News Service] Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori joined people from New Jersey and New York representing faith-based, community and immigrant rights groups on Ash Wednesday morning to begin a whole day of actions aimed at repenting the sin of immigration detention. “When the status of immigrants is questioned, our government frequently holds them essentially incommunicado and/or moves them far away from any family and local support they might have locally,” the presiding bishop said during the vigil. “Citizens of these United States share some responsibility for those undignified and unjust practices, and our prayer today must be that hearts...

This is a reflection on her sermon delivered at the United Thank Offering Ingathering, Festival Eucharist at General Convention July 8, 2012 By Sarah Frances Ives Ph.D Special to Virtueonline www.virtueonline.org July 8, 2012 On July 8, 2012, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori preached her brand of post-Christian religion while masquerading as a Christian bishop. She mocked most of the crucial doctrines of the Christian faith, including the God of creation, the Incarnation, and the Trinity. She accomplishes this through her demeaning use of rhetoric. She taunts the Lord by the use of the name "Big Man" and then points...

The announcement on Monday, March 30 that The Rev. Dr. Katherine Ragsdale was appointed as the sixth and newest president of Episcopal Divinity School (EDS) in Cambridge, MA, has orthodox and pro-life Episcopalians shaking their heads... ...the EDS website also has a link to Rev. Ragsdale’s sermon blog. There, the first sermon is entitled, “Our Work is Not Done...” “These are the two things I want you, please, to remember – abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Let me hear you say it: abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Abortion is a...

The evangelical church is under constant threat to compromise its reliance on biblical truth. The human desire to be accepted, to not be seen as “outside the mainstream,” can be overwhelming. But that desire is our weakness, our downfall. It does not always immediately destroy the dam we build to protect the waters of truth, but instead it leads to tiny fissures that grow until destruction is inevitable. Twenty years ago, I experienced the painful demise of the Episcopal Church, who once was a bastion of biblical truth. It was not a pretty picture. It was a picture painted in...

One of The Episcopal Church's most controversial bishops will soon be stepping down from his position and the three nominees for his seat have been announced. The Rev. V. Gene Robinson, the first openly homosexual bishop to be ordained by The Episcopal Church, will be ending his term as Bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire. On Thursday, the diocese announced the nominees for his position. The nominees are the Rev. Penelope Maud Bridges of St. Francis Episcopal Church, Great Falls, Va.; the Rev. A. Robert Hirschfeld of Grace Episcopal Church, Amherst, Mass.; and the Rev. Dr. William Warwick Rich...

“[We must] talk of hard financial issues and church decline and growth, to address elephants in the room, and to speak truth to one another in love." Executive Council of the Episcopal Church A month long investigation by Virtueonline into the numerical state of The Episcopal Church reveals that more than one third of all 6825 Episcopal parishes in the U.S. have an average Sunday attendance (ASA) of 40 or less. VOL believes that the figure of 2.3 million Episcopalians, regularly stated by TEC leaders and officials, does not reveal the true state of church attendance. More than two-thirds of...

Gender Studies may never have had a clear focus but it is still susceptible to mission creep. “And gender studies isn’t focused on analyzing gays and lesbians as a specific subgroup,” Paul Ketzle writes in the Winter issue of Continuum magazine. “Instead, it investigates how a central concept like sexual identity is conceptualized through cultural artifacts (such as novels, poems, art, and film), and also how myriad aspects of our society—from architecture to economic theory—are (sometimes surprisingly) gendered.” Ketzle is an instructor in the University of Utah Honors College. Continuum is the magazine of The University of Utah. “No one...

On Tuesday night, a group of 40 Episcopal bishops from around the country attended a weekly vigil in Douglas, AZ, held for those who have died trying to cross illegally into the U.S. The advocacy group known as Frontera de Cristo has been conducting the vigils along the Pan-American Highway since 2000. The group placed crosses on the sidewalk and spoke the names of those who died attempting the illegal crossing. The bishops are in Arizona for a meeting of the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church, and have been visiting with illegal aliens and listening to their stories...

Seven years after the Episcopal Church caused an uproar by consecrating its first openly gay bishop, it has done the same thing again -- only this time with a woman. The Rev. Canon Mary Glasspool, of Baltimore, was ordained and consecrated on Saturday, making her the second openly gay bishop in church history and one of the first two female bishops in the Diocese of Los Angeles' 114-year history. Breakaway Episcopal conservatives have formed a rival church, the Anglican Church in North America. Several overseas Anglicans have been pressuring Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, spiritual leader of the world's 77...

I have been looking for God my whole life. I first recognized Him in the black foster parents I worked with who manifested Christ-consciousness. I then found him four years ago, when my parents died three weeks apart and I was carried by a force stronger than myself. And more recently, as I’ve gone from left to right, I have discovered him in the many conservatives guiding me, such as AT readers.