Virginia Episcopals Join Nigerian Church Over Gay Issue
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FAIRFAX, Va. — Two of the largest Episcopal parishes in Virginia voted overwhelmingly yesterday to break from the Episcopal Church and join fellow Anglican conservatives forming a rival American denomination.
Truro Church in Fairfax and the Falls Church in Falls Church plan to place themselves under the leadership of an Anglican archbishop, Peter Akinola of Nigeria, who has called the growing acceptance of gay relationships a “satanic attack” on the church.
The archbishop hopes to create an American alliance of disaffected parishes called the Convocation of Anglicans in North America. Truro rector Martyn Minns was consecrated a bishop in the Church of Nigeria earlier this year to lead Archbishop Akinola’s American outreach.
Ninety percent of Falls Church parishioners and 92% of Truro members who cast ballots in the last week supported cutting ties with the Episcopal Church, parish leaders said yesterday.
Six other Virginia parishes are voting this month whether to leave.
The Truro and Falls Church break is likely to spark a lengthy, expensive legal fight over the historic properties, which are worth millions of dollars.
The Episcopal Church, the American wing of global Anglicanism, has been under pressure from traditionalists at home and abroad since the 2003 consecration of the first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.
