Thursday, March 28, 2013

Schism divides Brazilian Anglican church


Largest Anglican congregation in South America quits

The Bishop of São Paulo and the former primate of Brazil have quit the Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil (IEAB), taking with them the largest Anglican congregation in South America.

On 17 March 2013 parish council of St. Paul’s Cathedral in São Paulo stated that while they remained in the Anglican Communion they were reverting to their pre-1975 status as a Church of England chaplaincy and were no longer under the oversight of the IEAB.

Money and politics rather than doctrine appeared to be behind the secession of St. Paul’s. The Bishop of Recife, the Rt. Rev. Miguel Uchoa said the new group was not affiliated with his diocese in the Northeast. He told Anglican Ink that in 2012 the Diocese of São Paulo attempted to elect a new bishop. However, “the bishop elected was not accepted by some churches. They opened a protest against the diocese and from this mess the bishop in office and the retired bishop Glauco Soares de Lima, ex primate of Brazil, left together and now they call themselves just Anglicans.”

“There are no theological issue in all of this, no doctrinal subject. It seems that it is all about power and money. It is the first schismatic case I have seen here between the liberals over power,” Bishop Uchoa said. Read more

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