Following a May 14 visitation to Christ Church, Savannah, Ga., Archbishop Henry Orombi, Primate of the Anglican Church of Uganda, responded to a letter he said he never received from Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori.
A majority of members at the 275-year-old congregation voted in September to disaffiliate from The Episcopal Church and to accept an offer of episcopal oversight from the Church of Uganda.
In an e-mail message sent to reporters on May 12, Bishop Jefferts Schori asked Archbishop Orombi not to visit the congregation because it would “violate the spirit and letter of the work of the Windsor Report, and only lead to heightened tensions.” Her letter also noted that Archbishop Orombi’s scheduled visit was against the wishes of Bishop Henry Louttit of the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia.
In response, Archbishop Orombi said he “received word of your letter through a colleague, who had seen it on the internet. Without the internet, I may never have known that you had written such a personal, yet sadly ironic, letter to me.
“May I remind you that the initial reason the Lambeth Commission on Communion was appointed was because of unbiblical decisions taken by [The Episcopal Church] in defiance of repeated warnings by all of the Anglican Instruments of Communion,” Archbishop Orombi continued. “The Windsor Report was produced and accepted in amended form by the primates at our meeting in Dromantine, Northern Ireland, in February 2005. It is, therefore, quite ironic for you to be quoting the Windsor Report to me.
“Nowhere in the Windsor Report or in subsequent statements of the Instruments of Communion is there a moral equivalence between the unbiblical actions and decisions of TEC that have torn the fabric of our Communion at its deepest level and the pastoral response on our part to provide ecclesiastical oversight to American congregations who wish to continue to uphold the faith once delivered to the saints and remain a part of the Anglican Communion,” he wrote. “Your selective quoting of the Windsor Report is stunning in its arrogance and condescension.”
A spokeswoman for Bishop Jefferts Schori said the Presiding Bishop’s letter to Archbishop Orombi was sent via e-mail and the United States Postal Service on May 12, and that the Presiding Bishop was now in possession of Archbishop Orombi’s reply.
The Episcopal Diocese of Georgia petitioned Chatham Superior Court in November to declare it the rightful owner of the historic church property, worth an estimated $3 million. A new congregation known as Christ Episcopal Church currently meets at St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church.
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2 Comments
I find the Archbishop's lack of a response to the PB's question of why he willfully spurns the Windsor Report to be indicative of his own lack of respect for the "Instruments of Communion.". No hand waving or hand wringing can remove the lack of collegiality and the blatant defiance of the spirit and letter of the Windsor Report and the will of the "Instruments of Unity" by this bishop and others from Nigeria and the Southern Cone to name a few. Perhaps instead of waving the banner of 'un-Biblical' the "Archbishop" and his cohorts should look at their own compliance in un-collegial and un-Christian behavior that is the true threat to the Communion. The real question that I and many others have for these "Crusaders" from Uganda, Nigeria and the Southern Cone is why are the only parishes that need "saving" from the evils of the Episcopal Church and the Church of Canada the ones with large bank accounts and endowments. I'd be interested to see the financials as to how their bottom lines are effected by the addition of these "temporary lost sheep." Sadly, I think that temporal matters more than spiritual matters are what really matter to them and are what drive their "theology".
I will take Archbishop Orombi at his word and assume his views are heartfelt and sincere. I find his quote "because of unbiblical decisions taken..." interesting and worthy of taking note. I thought the Bible was a moral compass -- not a straitjacket. If it is indeed a straitjacket, as some of our evangelical brothers and sisters seem to believe, we have no need of free will or discernment. But God has given us these gifts. Just as no one in the Anglican Communion (I hope) truly believes God really directed the slaughter of innocents that we read about in the book of Joshua, I think we should leave ourselves open to the possibility that the Spirit is moving in new ways concerning sexual morality. As 'new ways' certainly post-date the Bible, this movement by the Spirit could indeed be 'unbiblical.' The Spirit of God has not stopped moving among us even though the Bible was 'finalized' at Nicaea nearly 1700 years ago. Now is the time for quiet discernment, particularly at the highest levels of the Anglican Community (yes, I choose "community" deliberately rather than "communion" in this context). If we need to expend energy, there is a lot of hurt in the world right now we can expend it on - just read or watch the news. This is the kind of action which I believe is more pleasing in the eyes of Christ. Matt 23:23
Michael A. Foughty
St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Alexandria, VA