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Continuing Anglican movement

Groups outside the Anglican Communion

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Through North America and India

The term was first used in 1948 to describe members of the Church of England in Nandyal who refused to enter the emerging Church of South India, which united the Anglican Church of India, Burma and Ceylon with the Reformed (Presbyterian and Congregationalist) and Methodist churches in India. Today, however, the term usually refers to the churches that descend from the 1977 Congress of St. Louis, at which the foundation was laid for a new Anglican church in North America and which produced the Affirmation of St. Louis, which opens with the title "The Continuation of Anglicanism". Some church bodies that pre-date the Congress of St. Louis (such as the Free Church of England and the Reformed Episcopal Church), or are of more recent origin (such as the Church of England (Continuing), have referred to themselves as "Continuing Anglican" as they are traditional in belief and practice, though they did not emerge subsequent to the Congress of St. Louis.

The churches defined as "Continuing Anglican" are historically separate from GAFCON, comprising Confessing Anglican denominations such as the Anglican Church in North America, which is not a member of the Anglican Communion, though in literature GAFCON members have been referred to as "Continuing Anglican" in the sense that they seek to embody "conservative Anglicanism" or "Traditional Anglicanism".

Relations with the Anglican Communion

Continuing Anglican churches were formed by clergy and laity who left churches belonging to the Anglican Communion. Continuing Anglican churches believe that those churches have been compromised by adopting secular cultural standards and liberal approaches to theology. Continuing Anglicans generally believe that the faith of some churches in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury have become heterodox and even heretical, and therefore have not sought affiliation with the Anglican Communion. Although the term Anglican historically refers also to those churches in communion with the Church of England and the Archbishop of Canterbury, many Continuing churches, particularly those in the United States, use the term Anglican to differentiate themselves from the Episcopal Church of the United States, which they consider heterodox.

In 1978, Presiding Bishop John M. Allin released a statement with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Donald Coggan, that the Anglican Church formed from the consecrations performed by Bishop Chambers was in communion neither with the See of Canterbury, nor the Episcopal Church, nor the wider Anglican Communion. At the 1998 Lambeth Conference, Resolution IV.11, Continuing Churches, was added, which asked the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates' Meeting to consider how best to initiate and maintain dialogue with such groups with a view to the reconciliation of all who partake of the Anglican tradition.

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