The Christian Episcopal Church (XnEC) is a

Continuing Anglican The Continuing Anglican Movement, also known as the Anglican Continuum, encompasses a number of Christian churches, principally based in North America, that have an Anglican identity and tradition but are not part of the Anglican Communion. Thes ...

jurisdiction consisting of

parishes A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

and with oversight of several parishes in the

Cayman Islands The Cayman Islands () is a self-governing British Overseas Territory—the largest by population in the western Caribbean Sea. The territory comprises the three islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, which are located to the ...

. Its

bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...

s are in

apostolic succession Apostolic succession is the method whereby the ministry of the Christian Church is held to be derived from the apostles by a continuous succession, which has usually been associated with a claim that the succession is through a series of bish ...

through the Right Rev. A. Donald Davies (deceased). Davies was formerly the bishop-in-charge of the Convocation of American Churches in Europe and the bishop of the

Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth is a diocese of the Anglican Church in North America. The diocese comprises 62 congregations and its headquarters are in Fort Worth, Texas. The diocese is divided in six deaneries, each headed by a dean, which ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

. Bishop Archibald Donald Davies had, in 1970, been consecrated the fourth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas. Fifteen bishops of the Episcopal Church assisted at the consecration of Bishop Davies, with

John Elbridge Hines John Elbridge Hines (October 3, 1910 – July 19, 1997) was a bishop in the Episcopal Church in the United States. When he was elected the 22nd Presiding Bishop in 1965, at the age of 54, he was the youngest person to hold that office, which ...

as one of the principal consecrators. Bishop Hines had himself been consecrated the fifth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Texas in 1945, and was later elected the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. In 1992, following years of controversy in the

Episcopal Church in the USA The Episcopal Church, based in the United States with additional dioceses elsewhere, is a member church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. It is a mainline Protestant denomination and is divided into nine provinces. The presiding bishop of ...

and the

Anglican Church of Canada The Anglican Church of Canada (ACC or ACoC) is the Ecclesiastical province#Anglican Communion, province of the Anglican Communion in Canada. The official French-language name is ''l'Église anglicane du Canada''. In 2017, the Anglican Church co ...

over what conservative members considered a steady drift towards both political and religious liberalism, the

Episcopal Missionary Church The Episcopal Missionary Church (EMC) is a Continuing Anglican church body in the United States and a member of the Federation of Anglican Churches in the Americas. Its founding in the early 1990s can be traced to the protests of members of The ...

(EMC) was founded. Although this was fifteen years after the Congress of St. Louis at which Anglicans from the USA and Canada created the

Continuing Anglican Movement The Continuing Anglican Movement, also known as the Anglican Continuum, encompasses a number of Christian churches, principally based in North America, that have an Anglican identity and tradition but are not part of the Anglican Communion. The ...

in opposition to

women's ordination The ordination of women to ministerial or priestly office is an increasingly common practice among some contemporary major religious groups. It remains a controversial issue in certain Christian traditions and most denominations in which "ordin ...

, Prayer Book alterations, and more relaxed sexual standards approved in ECUSA, the EMC is usually considered a Continuing Church. Bishop Davies was elected its first presiding bishop. He was also elected Archbishop and Primate of the several parishes constituting the Christian Episcopal Church of Canada. A decade later, a split in the Episcopal Missionary Church's Diocese of the West produced the Christian Episcopal Church in the USA. Those who left the Diocese then appealed to Bishop Davies and joined with the churches in Canada. At one time, the XnEC in the United States counted parishes in Mississippi, South Carolina, California, Arizona, Texas and other states, but at present its parishes are two in Washington State and one in Florida. The current

Archbishop In Christian denominations, an archbishop is a bishop of higher rank or office. In most cases, such as the Catholic Church, there are many archbishops who either have jurisdiction over an ecclesiastical province in addition to their own archdi ...

and

Primate Primates are a diverse order of mammals. They are divided into the strepsirrhines, which include the lemurs, galagos, and lorisids, and the haplorhines, which include the tarsiers and the simians (monkeys and apes, the latter including huma ...

is the Theodore C. Casimes. XnEC's Bishop Co-Adjutor is the Rt. Rev. Dr. Tim Klerekoper. Every bishop in the Christian Episcopal Church has had Archbishop Davies as one of his consecrators. All, therefore, can claim to have received valid episcopal orders through the bishops of the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

, and the

Scottish Episcopal Church The Scottish Episcopal Church ( gd, Eaglais Easbaigeach na h-Alba; sco, Scots Episcopal(ian) Kirk) is the ecclesiastical province of the Anglican Communion in Scotland. A continuation of the Church of Scotland as intended by King James VI, and ...

, but also from the Episcopal Church in the USA. The Christian Episcopal Church of Canada is headed by Robert David Redmile. In September 2017 it was announced by Archbishop Theodore Casimes that

Gavin Ashenden Gavin Roy Pelham Ashenden (born 3 June 1954) is a British Catholic layman, author and commentator, and Associate Editor of the Catholic Herald. Formerly a priest of the Church of England, and subsequently a continuing Anglican bishop. He was a ...

had been consecrated as a missionary bishop in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

and

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

by the Christian Episcopal Church. However, on the fourth Sunday of Advent 2019, Ashenden was received into the Roman Catholic Church by Bishop Mark Davies, the Bishop of Shrewsbury in Shrewsbury Cathedral.

Bibliography

*''The Apostolic Succession and the Catholic Episcopate in the Christian Episcopal'' by Robert David Redmile, published by Xulon, 2006 , pages 66,85-86

References

External links

Official Christian Episcopal Church webpage
Canada and USA jurisdictions {{Anglican denominations in the United States Christian organizations established in 2002 Anglican denominations in North America Continuing Anglican denominations Anglican denominations established in the 21st century