James Parker Dees

James Parker Dees
1st Presiding Bishop
Church Anglican Orthodox Church
See Anglican Orthodox Church
In office 1963 to 1990
Predecessor None
Successor George C. Schneller
Personal details
Born 30 December 1915
Greenville, North Carolina, USA
Died December 25, 1990(1990-12-25) (aged 74)
USA
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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

James Parker Dees was the founder and first bishop of the Anglican Orthodox Church and the Orthodox Anglican Communion. Dees was born in Greenville, North Carolina on December 30, 1915, the son of James Earle Dees and Margaret Burgwin (Parker) Dees. He graduated in 1938 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a B.A. degree in political science and economics, then took a year of graduate study in international relations. From 1939 until 1942, he worked for the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad in Greenville, North Carolina. For two years after the Second World War, he was a baritone soloist with the New York Opera Company. He then studied at the Protestant Episcopal Church’s Virginia Theological Seminary for his Bachelor of Divinity degree, graduating in 1949. He was ordained as a deacon in the Episcopal Church on June 29, 1949; and as a priest by the Rt. Rev. Thomas Henry Wright, the Bishop of East Carolina, at the Church of the Holy Cross, in Aurora, North Carolina, on January 19, 1950. As a member of the Diocese of North Carolina, he served in charges in Aurora, Beaufort, and Statesville. His concerns about advancing liberalism caused him to withdraw from the denomination in 1963. Dees was discouraged from joining the Reformed Episcopal Church by Carl McIntire because of their association with groups perceived as being neo-evangelical. The decision to form a new jurisdiction was made. Dees founded the Anglican Orthodox Church on November 17, 1963 - the first religious body to withdraw from the PECUSA in the modern era. On Passion Sunday, March 15, 1964 Dees was consecrated a bishop by Bishop Wasyl Sawyna[1] of the Holy Ukrainian Autocephalic Orthodox Church of North and South America, assisted by Bishop Orlando Jacques Woodward of Old Catholic succession.[2]

Dees received the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity from Bob Jones University in 1965.[3]

In 1967 Dees founded the Orthodox Anglican Communion for the purpose of providing coverage to churches abroad, and soon thereafter Bishops Khurshid Alam of Pakistan and Bishop V. J. Stephen of South India affiliated with the Communion, recognizing Dees as Metropolitan. New national churches in Kenya, Madagascar, Great Britain, and Colombia, rapidly followed. Upon this wave of expansion and success, Cranmer Seminary, the theological college of the jurisdiction and the communion, was founded.

Dees died during heart surgery on December 25, 1990. Dees' successor as Presiding Bishop of the Anglican Orthodox Church was the Most Revd George C. Schneller.

References

  1. Independent Bishops: An International Directory, Ward and Persson authors, Omnigraphics Inc (December 1990), p 359.
  2. http://anglicanhistory.org/essays/badertscher/chapter2.pdf
  3. Sword of the Lord (July 2, 1965) 5.
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