New Anglican diocese: St. Andrew's rector named vicar general for churches in Carolinas

Since it severed ties with the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of South Carolina, St. Andrew's Church-Mount Pleasant has grown. And now it has secured a central role in a new diocese in formation, part of the Anglican Church in North America.

The Rev. Steve Wood, rector of St. Andrew's, was appointed vicar general of the not-yet-official Diocese of the Carolinas, which includes eight churches in North and South Carolina and one more that's still being established.

ACNA was started in 2008 at the invitation of the Global Anglican Future Conference and formally recognized by its Anglican leaders in April 2009. ACNA is a province in formation that brings together Anglicans in the U.S. and Canada, many of whom have left the Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada in recent years because of theological differences over homosexuality, the requirements for salvation, the authority of Scripture and other issues.

The Most Rev. Robert Duncan is the archbishop of ACNA and bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh. ACNA includes nearly 700 congregations and close to 300 ministry partner congregations in 21 dioceses. Two more regional governing bodies, the dioceses of the Carolinas and the Southwest, soon will join them.

As vicar general, Wood is charged by Duncan with setting up the diocese.

Just as a mission church has a vicar, so too does a mission diocese, Wood said. A bishop will be elected once it's fully formed.

"My fundamental responsibility is to develop the organizational and administrative components of the diocese," Wood said.

The goal is to draft the canons of the diocese, search for a bishop and finish establishing the administrative structure by June 2012, when ACNA's provincial council next meets, he said. To read more, click here.

To exmine the Constitution of the Diocese of the Carolinas, click here.

In upcoming articles I will be examining the the model constitution that the ACNA has been distributing to groups desiring recognition as an ACNA diocese and scrutinizing the Constitution of the Diocese of the Carolinas. A cursory examination of the latter document reveals a number of problem areas. Comparison with the model ACNA diocesan constitution will show the extent these problem areas may be attributable to that document.