Affirmation of St. Louis
Encyclopedia
The Affirmation of St. Louis is the founding document of the Continuing Anglican Movement
Continuing Anglican Movement
The term Continuing Anglican movement refers to a number of churches in various countries that have been formed outside of the Anglican Communion. These churches generally believe that "traditional" forms of Anglican faith and worship have been unacceptably revised or abandoned within some...

 churches. It was first presented to the Congress of Saint Louis, the 1977 meeting of former members of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America and the Anglican Church of Canada
Anglican Church of Canada
The Anglican Church of Canada is the Province of the Anglican Communion in Canada. The official French name is l'Église Anglicane du Canada. The ACC is the third largest church in Canada after the Roman Catholic Church and the United Church of Canada, consisting of 800,000 registered members...

 who approved the creation of a new Anglican church for the United States and Canada. The delegates also accepted the Affirmation by acclamation. Although it was not put to a vote at the Congress, most Continuing Anglican churches nevertheless consider it to be an official statement of their faith. These Continuing Anglican churches consider themselves to be the legitimate replacements for those Anglican churches which, in their view, broke with Apostolic order by authorizing the ordination of women priests.

The Affirmation has several general tenets:
  • Dissolution of Anglican Church structures: That the churches to which the delegates had previously belonged had ceased to have a valid ministry through the act of ordaining women to the priesthood.
  • Continuation of Anglicanism: That Anglicanism could only continue through a complete separation from the structures of the Episcopal Church in the USA and the Anglican Church of Canada.
  • Invalidity of Schismatic Authority: That the churches to which the delegates had previously belonged had made themselves schismatic by their break with traditional order and, therefore, had ceased to have any authority over them or other members.
  • Continued Communion with Canterbury: That communion with Canterbury would continue because the Church of England
    Church of England
    The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...

    had not, at that time, ordained women to the priesthood. This article of the Affirmation became inoperable with the ordination of women by the Church of England in 1990s.
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