Archbishop Peter Akinola of the Anglican Church of Nigeria plans to lead a ceremony Saturday at a nondenominational chapel in Woodbridge, Va., where he'll install Martyn Minns, a former Episcopal clergyman, as bishop and U.S. leader of Akinola's Convocation of Anglicans in North America. Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has "strongly urged" Akinola not to enter the United States to install Minns. In a letter to him this week, she said his visit would violate the Anglican tradition that national church leaders, called primates, only minister to churches within their own provinces.
Akinola responded Wednesday that "the usual protocol and permissions are no longer applicable" because of what he called the "unbiblical agenda" of the U.S. church. He said he created CANA "to provide a safe place for those who wish to remain faithful Anglicans but can no longer do so within the Episcopal Church as it is currently being led." "For us, we felt that waiting for one more meeting and one more deadline - too many folks were getting lost in the middle, so for us, it was time to move on," Minns said in a teleconference with reporters Thursday.
Episcopal Bishop Peter Lee of Virginia, in a letter to his diocese, said Akinola's visit "will serve only to inflame the differences we have been struggling with."
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