Anglican Orthodox Church
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The Anglican Orthodox Church (AOC) is a jurisdiction in the Anglican tradition, and was incorporated on September 28, 2001.[1] The church traces its history to a church of the same name which separated from the Episcopal Church in the USA in 1963. The Reverend James Parker Dees, a North Carolina priest of the Episcopal Church, left that church because of a concern that it had become steadily more politically and theologically liberal.
Dees was then consecrated a bishop by two bishops in Apostolic Succession--an Anglican bishop in Old Catholic succession and a bishop of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. Thereafter, Bishop Dees, as the AOC's new presiding bishop, established the church's offices in Statesville, North Carolina. In 1967 Bishop Dees organized the Orthodox Anglican Communion with affiliate jurisdictions in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Pacific basin. Under Bishop Dees the U.S. Branch of the communion reported forty parishes. Bishop Dees died during heart surgery in 1990.
In 1999, then Presiding Bishop Robert Godfrey led a move away from the AOC's original Protestant and low church principles. This action led to a court test and ultimately to a formal split by which the headquarters property was divided. Bishop Godfrey's group retained the name of the church's international communion, Orthodox Anglican Communion and the denomination's seminary. The other faction, led by members of the church's Standing Committee, incorporated under the Anglican Orthodox Church name which had been abandoned by the group led by Bishop Godfrey.
The Anglican Orthodox Church firmly holds to the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, the use of the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, the Homilies, and the Holy Scriptures as containing all that is necessary for salvation. Additionally, the church preaches the importance of Biblical morality both in an individual's life and as public policy. The AOC strongly identifies itself as in the Anglican Low Church tradition and rejects the use of the title "Father" for its clergy as well as many of the priestly vestments commonly used in other Anglican jurisdictions, the five "minor sacraments" and any veneration of the saints.
The church has been led by the Most Reverend Jerry L. Ogles of Enterpise, Alabama, since October 22, 2000. He is the Bishop of the United States and the first Metropolitan of the Anglican Orthodox Church International which was incorporated April 12, 1999.[2] The church offices are in Statesville, North Carolina. In 2007, the AOC reported seven parishes in the USA and Canada, plus bishops and churches in other countries including India, Liberia, Madagascar, South Africa, Kenya, the Philippines, Fiji, and the Solomon Islands. The church holds a triennial convention in the same years as does the Episcopal Church USA.
