Congress of St. Louis

Part of a series on the Continuing Anglican Movement
Background
Christianity · Western Christianity · English Reformation · Anglicanism · Controversy within The Episcopal Church (United States) · Book of Common Prayer · Congress of St. Louis · Affirmation of St. Louis · Bartonville Agreement · North American Anglican Conference
People
Albert A. Chambers · James Parker Dees · Charles D. D. Doren · Thomas Gordon · William Millsaps · Robert S. Morse · Stephen C. Reber · Peter D. Robinson · Peter Toon
Churches
Anglican Catholic Church Anglican Catholic Church in Australia Anglican Catholic Church of Canada Anglican Church in America Anglican Episcopal Church Anglican Orthodox Church Anglican Province of America Anglican Province of Christ the King Christian Episcopal Church Church of England (Continuing) Diocese of the Great Lakes Diocese of the Holy Cross Episcopal Missionary Church Holy Catholic Church—Western Rite Orthodox Anglican Church Orthodox Anglican Communion Traditional Anglican Church of America Traditional Anglican Communion United Episcopal Church of North America

The 1977 Congress of St. Louis was an international gathering of nearly 2,000 Anglicans united in their rejection of theological changes introduced by the Anglican Church of Canada and by the Episcopal Church in the United States of America in its General Convention of 1976. Anglicans who attended this congress felt that these changes amounted to foundational alterations in the American and Canadian provinces of the Anglican Communion and meant that they had "departed from Christ's One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church."^[1]

The Congress of St. Louis produced the Affirmation of St. Louis which authorized the formation of the "Anglican Church in North America (Episcopal)." Despite the plans for a united North American church, the result was division into several Continuing Anglican churches: the Anglican Catholic Church, the Anglican Province of Christ the King, the United Episcopal Church of North America, and the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada.

These continuing churches are described by the Affirmation of St. Louis as maintaining the faith and practices of the Anglican Church rather than breaking away from it, since it was the Episcopal Church in the United States of America and the Anglican Church of Canada which introduced the changes seen by the delegates in St. Louis as amounting to a departure from scripture, the Anglican tradition, and the "One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church."^[1] Theological liberalism, revisions to the Book of Common Prayer, and the ordination of women priests were not the only reasons for the split, but they were seen by these churches as evidence of the mainline church's departure from Anglican orthodoxy.^[2]

References

1. Excerpt from the Affirmation of St. Louis as printed in an ACC brochure, “Who we are”
2. The Path of the Episcopal Church : Walking Apart

External links

• The Affirmation of St. Louis, full text of the document.
• About The Anglican Catholic Church, a section containing history of the ACC.
• Walking Apart, a wiki documenting actions by and milestones of ECUSA in their perceived departure from Anglicanism.