OAKWOOD - A new church has been formed in Hall County by about 60 former members of St. Gabriel's Episcopal in Oakwood and other Episcopal churches in the area.
They left those parishes after the Episcopal national convention elected the church's first openly gay Episcopal bishop a couple of months ago. Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire was elected at the church's General Convention in Minneapolis in August.
The new church is called Church of the Holy Trinity and held its first service Sunday at McEver Road United Methodist Church.
Its organizers have aligned themselves with a conservative, breakaway Episcopalian group called the Anglican Mission in America. That group says it has about 50 churches with more than 10,000 members.
As for the future of such churches, Don Armentrout, a professor of church history at the University of the South, as saying they rarely last because they often end up fighting among themselves.
"...in very many cases, there's a lot of personality involved and there'll be a conflict and one group will pull out of the other group," Armentrout said. "This is probably true of most American protestant groups."
Armentrout says there are about 40 Episcopal breakaway churches in the U.S. with about 20,000 members.
Wednesday
July 3rd, 2024
4:37AM
