The Traditional Anglican Church (TAC), formerly the Traditional Anglican Communion, is an international church consisting of national provinces in the continuing Anglican movement, independent of the Anglican Communion and the Archbishop of Canterbury. The TAC upholds the theological doctrines of the Affirmation of St. Louis. Each of the respective jurisdictions utilizes a traditional Book of Common Prayer deemed to be free of theological deviation. Most parishioners of these churches would be described as being traditional Prayer Book Anglicans in their theology and liturgical practice. Some Anglo-Catholic parishes use the Anglican Missal in their liturgies. The TAC is governed by a college of bishops from across the church and headed by an elected primate.[1]
TAC member churches were established outside the Anglican Communion over a number of different issues; the principal issue has been the ordination of women. Other issues include liturgical revisions, the acceptance of homosexual activity and the importance of apostolic tradition within the church.
In 1990, the then Traditional Anglican Communion was formed by the agreement of the Victoria Concordat. In 1991, members of the American Episcopal Church, the Anglican Catholic Church, and some other continuing churches came together to form the Anglican Church in America as a part of the Traditional Anglican Communion.[2] The goal was to create a united communion of Continuing Anglican churches, which originated in the Affirmation of St. Louis, which repudiated the revision of the Book of Common Prayer, in addition to other issues, such as the ordination of women.[3][4] With the beginning of the 21st century, "the communion reported 14 member churches with a total of 300,000 members spread over six continents."[5]
In October 2007 the bishops of TAC formally expressed the desire to enter into full unity with the See of Rome without losing core Anglican distinctives.[6][7] The full petition accepted the ministry of the Bishop of Rome and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.[8] The Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith stated, on 5 July 2008, that it was giving serious consideration to the prospect of corporate union with groups of Anglicans and on 29 October 2009 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith announced Pope Benedict XVI's intention to create a new type of ecclesiastical structure,[9] called a personal ordinariate, for unspecified groups of Anglicans entering into full communion with the See of Rome.[10]
On 4 November 2009, Pope Benedict signed the apostolic constitution, Anglicanorum coetibus, which was released on 9 November 2009 and on 3 March 2010, in Orlando, Florida, the eight members of the house of bishops of the Anglican Church in America — the United States branch of the TAC — voted unanimously to formally ask the Holy See to be accepted as a personal ordinariate.[11][12][13]
On 17 March 2010, leaders of the Canadian branch of the TAC (the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada) decided to do the same. The TAC member churches in the United Kingdom and Australia also petitioned for the formation of respective ordinariates.[14]
On 1 March 2012, the TAC College of Bishops announced the acceptance, with immediate effect, of Archbishop Hepworth's resignation as primate and the appointment of Archbishop Samuel Prakash as acting primate.[15] The college of bishops also made it known that the TAC would not be accepting the offer made to Anglicans by the Holy See.[16]
On October 14, 2016, the college of bishops elected Archbishop Shane B. Janzen as the third primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion. The new constitution of the Traditional Anglican Church, which reconstitutes the worldwide Traditional Anglican Communion into the global Traditional Anglican Church, was adopted and ratified in March 2020.[17]
On 16 February 2022, it was announced that the TAC has entered into an agreement of full sacramental communion (communio in sacris) with the Anglican Province of America.[18]
^Testing Pluralism: Globalizing Belief, Localizing Gods. Brill Publishers. 20 June 2013. p. 158. ISBN9789004254756. Separately from this Provision, an international organization, the Traditional Anglican Communion was formed by a variety of "continuing" groups throughout the world to coordinate responses to various concerns among their constituents.
^Leonard, Thomas M. (18 October 2013). Encyclopedia of the Developing World. Routledge. p. 52. ISBN9781135205089. The Anglican Communion should not be confused with the Traditional Anglican communion, a much smaller group that split off from the Episcopal Church in 1977 over doctrinal issues such as the role of women as clergy.
^Melton, J. Gordon (1 January 2005). Encyclopedia of Protestantism. Infobase Publishing. p. 29. ISBN9780816069835. Meanwhile, several of the more substantial conservative Anglican groups have formed the Traditional Anglican Communion to resist what they see as the continuing secularization of the church. As the new century began, the communion reported 14 member churches with a total of 300,000 members spread over six continents.
^Weatherbe, Steve (March 14, 2010). "Anglo-Catholic Bishops Vote for Rome". National Catholic Register. Archived from the original on March 13, 2010. Retrieved 2010-03-08. Although the Holy See had yet to respond to the ACA, the bishops of the Anglican Church in America voted to have the ACA and its 3,000 claimed communicants in 120 parishes join the Roman Catholic Church. See also: Anglicanorum Coetibus#Anglican Church in America.
^THE TRADITIONAL ANGLICAN COMMUNION COLLEGE OF BISHOPS (2012-04-12). "FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE"(PDF). Archived from the original(PDF) on 2012-04-12. Retrieved 2023-05-12.
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