Bishop Robinson Cavalcanti, along with the congregations and clergy of 44 parishes of the Diocese of Recife in northeastern Brazil, were received last week by Presiding Bishop Gregory Venables as an extra-territorial diocese of the Church of the Province of the Southern Cone.
 
The reception marks a shift in the status of the traditionalist Brazilian congregations from a personal prelature of Bishop Venables over individuals in Recife to a formal ecclesial entity within the province.
 
In 2005, Bishop Venables extended his personal primatial oversight to Bishop Cavalcanti and 40 priests of the Diocese of Recife after they were deposed by the Brazilian church for contumacy. Approximately 90 percent of the diocese backed Bishop Cavalcanti and withdrew from the Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil (IEAB) to form the Anglican Diocese of Recife (DAR). The IEAB appointed a new bishop to oversee the remaining clergy.
 
Following last month’s vote by the Southern Cone synod to welcome ecclesial entities into the province, delegates to the annual synod in the DAR voted on Dec. 8 to ask to be received as an “extra-territorial” diocese, and adopted legislation conforming the diocese’s constitution and canons to those of the Southern Cone.
 
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