| Diocese of Forth Worth | |
|---|---|
Seal of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth |
|
| Location | |
| Ecclesiastical province | Anglican Church in North America |
| Statistics | |
| Parishes | 58 |
| Members | c.19,000 (2008) |
| Information | |
| Rite | Anglican |
| Cathedral | St. Vincent's Cathedral |
| Current leadership | |
| Bishop | The Rt. Rev. Jack Iker |
| Website | |
| The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth | |
The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, a diocese of the Anglican Church in North America, is headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, and comprises 58 congregations. The diocese is led by Bishop Jack Iker, SSC. It is a member of the Anglican Church in North America, since its foundation, in 2009.
The controversial separation between it and the identically-named Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth in the Episcopal Church arose out of events in 2008, when the 26th annual convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth voted to remove the diocese from the Episcopal Church and join the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone.[1]
At the time of the vote in 2008 to separate from the Episcopal Church, the diocese had geographically fixed boundaries covering 24 counties in Texas and claimed 19,000 members.[1] Afterward, in accordance with the non-geographical concept of dioceses in the Anglican Church of North America, it began to accept congregations outside its previous territory. In early 2010, the diocese reported 58 congregations, of which 56 were in Texas, one in Oklahoma and one in Arkansas.[2] The cathedral of the diocese is St. Vincent's Cathedral in Bedford.
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The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth came into being in 1983 and, within the Episcopal Church, was long seen as a leader of Anglo-Catholics and other theological conservatives within American Anglicanism. The diocesan bishop, Jack Iker, SSC, was the last diocesan bishop in the Episcopal Church who held that a bishop could not ordain women to the priesthood.
In 2006, most of the fifty-one parishes in the diocese affiliated with the Anglican Communion Network, an association of dioceses, parishes, and clergy working to counteract what its members consider a liberal shift in doctrine and practice that abandons or ignores traditional teaching and discipline.
In November 2008, delegates at a diocesan convention voted to leave the Episcopal Church (United States) and join the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone.[1] In 2009, the diocese joined the new Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), whose founding convention was held at St. Vincent's Cathedral. [3] Joining ACNA therefore created a dual affiliation for the diocese.
The Episcopal Church maintains that the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth remains a part of the Episcopal Church and that only the individuals in favor of these motions have left the Episcopal Church.[4] The decision of convention was challenged by a minority of members from few parishes (the vote to leave TEC was 72 to 19 clergy and 102 to 25 laity), who have since reorganized[5] and remain within the Episcopal Church with the Rt. Rev. Ted Gulick as provisional bishop.
Following the vote of diocesan convention to leave the Episcopal Church, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori, declared that Bishop Iker was inhibited from exercising his office as a bishop in the Episcopal Church, on the grounds that he had violated Title IV, Canon 9, by abandoning the Doctrine, Discipline or Worship of the Church. In response, Iker rejected the authority of the Presiding Bishop. Thus, the Presiding Bishop, on December 5, with the advice and consent of her Council of Advice (bishops who are the presidents or vice-presidents of each province), deemed that Iker had renounced ordained ministry and declared him removed from it.[6]
The Standing Committee of the Diocese, which in the absence of the bishop would be the highest ecclesiastical authority of the diocese, regarded the subsequent inhibition of Iker by Katharine Jefferts Schori as an "illegal, unconstitutional, and uncanonical attempt to interfere with the rights and ministry of a diocese of another province of the Anglican Communion", thus affirming their decision to realign with the Southern Cone.[7]