The Most Rev. Benjamin Nzimbi, Primate of Kenya, has announced he will consecrate the Rev. Canon Bill Atwood as a suffragan bishop to oversee the U.S.-based congregations of the Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK).

The Aug. 30 consecration of Canon Atwood as “Suffragan Bishop of All Saints' Cathedral Diocese, Nairobi” is “part of a broader and coordinated plan with other provinces,” Archbishop Nzimbi said on June 12, to “support the international interests of the Anglican Church of Kenya, including support of Kenyan clergy and congregations in North America.”

An undisclosed number of Global South primates are expected to participate in Canon Atwood’s consecration in Nairobi and are expected to work with the Kenyan Church in forming a “North American Anglican Coalition.”

The coalition will “provide a safe haven for those who maintain historic Anglican faith and practice, and offer a way to live and work together in the furtherance of the gospel,” the statement said.

Archbishop Nzimbi stated The Episcopal Church had torn the fabric of the Anglican Communion and the House of Bishops had “exacerbated” the damage by failing to provide adequate pastoral care for the “faithful” and for rejecting the pastoral council “offered through the primates in their communiqué from Dar es Salaam.”

The impetus for a Kenyan bishop to the U.S. came at a Jan. 13-14 meeting in Memphis, Tenn., between Archbishop Nzimbi and the clergy and lay leaders of 17 American AKC congregations. The congregations petitioned Archbishop Nzimbi to create a missionary diocese for the 25 U.S.-based congregations of Kenyan expatriates and American traditionalists under his care.

Archbishop Nzimbi told the Memphis gathering he would bring their request to the February primates' meeting. “We must go slowly and assure that in every step we are giving honor and glory to God,” he told the meeting, according to a Jan. 15 article in the Memphis Commercial Appeal.

The consecration of Canon Atwood, a former Episcopalian and general secretary of The Ekklesia Society, will mark the third time an African Anglican province has created a missionary jurisdiction in the United States. The Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMiA) operates under the aegis of the Episcopal Church of Rwanda, while the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA) is overseen by the Church of Nigeria. Several other overseas provinces, including Central Africa and the Southern Cone, also exercise jurisdiction over U.S.-based parishes.

(The Rev.) George Conger

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