The Anglican Diocese of the Living Word, formerly the Missionary Diocese of CANA East, is a diocese of the

Anglican Church in North America The Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) is a Christian denomination in the Anglican tradition in the United States and Canada. It also includes ten congregations in Mexico, two mission churches in Guatemala, and a missionary diocese in Cuba. ...

(ACNA). It was one of the four missionary dioceses of the

Convocation of Anglicans in North America The Church of Nigeria North American Mission (CONNAM) is a missionary body of the Church of Nigeria (CON). It has been in a ministry partnership with the Anglican Church in North America but no longer affiliated with it beyond mutual membership i ...

, a dual church body of the ACNA and the

Church of Nigeria The Church of Nigeria is the Anglicanism, Anglican Church body, church in Nigeria. It is the second-largest Province (Anglican), province in the Anglican Communion, as measured by baptised membership (not by attendance), after the Church of Englan ...

. It is officially a full member diocese of ACNA since June 2013. It comprises 42 congregations in 19 American states, with congregations as far as California and Florida but with most concentrated in the northeastern and mid-Atlantic regions. The diocese is divided into nine archdeaconries:

Central New York The central region of New York state includes: * Auburn in Cayuga County * Cortland in Cortland County * Oneida in Madison County * Syracuse, the largest city of Central New York, in Onondaga County * Fulton and Oswego in Oswego County ...

, the

Chesapeake Chesapeake most often refers to: *Chesapeake people, a Native American tribe also known as the Chesepian *Chesapeake Bay *Delmarva Peninsula, also known as the Chesapeake Peninsula Chesapeake may also refer to: Populated places In Virginia * ...

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated continental island in southeastern New York (state), New York state, extending into the Atlantic Ocean. It constitutes a significant share of the New York metropolitan area in both population and land are ...

, the

Mid-Atlantic Mid-Atlantic or Mid Atlantic can refer to: *The middle of the Atlantic Ocean *Mid-Atlantic English, any mix between British and American English *Mid-Atlantic Region (Little League World Series), one of the United States geographic divisions of the ...

, the

Northeast The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A '' compass rose'' is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—eac ...

, northeastern New York, the

Ohio Valley The Ohio River () is a river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing in a southwesterly direction from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to its mouth on the Mississippi River in Cairo, ...

, the

South South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both west and east. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþa ...

and the

Midwest The Midwestern United States (also referred to as the Midwest, the Heartland or the American Midwest) is one of the four census regions defined by the United States Census Bureau. It occupies the northern central part of the United States. It ...

. The diocese also sponsors a mission in Haiti that includes nine additional congregations. The diocesan office is located at

McLean, Virginia McLean ( ) is an Unincorporated area#United States, unincorporated community and census-designated place in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. The population of the community was 50,773 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is ...

. The diocese also includes two affiliated religious communities: the Franciscan Brothers of Bucksport and the Community of St. Mary (East) in New York.

Theology and churchmanship

ADLW encompasses churches composed principally of

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

n Anglican

expatriate An expatriate (often shortened to expat) is a person who resides outside their native country. The term often refers to a professional, skilled worker, or student from an affluent country. However, it may also refer to retirees, artists and ...

s, Anglican church plants using pre- 1979 prayer book liturgies, and breakaway Episcopal Church parishes. Its doctrinal distinctives focus on

Reformed theology Reformed Christianity, also called Calvinism, is a major branch of Protestantism that began during the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. In the modern day, it is largely represented by the Continental Reformed Protestantism, Continenta ...

, and its churchmanship tends to be

low church In Anglican Christianity, the term ''low church'' refers to those who give little emphasis to ritual, often having an emphasis on preaching, individual salvation, and personal conversion. The term is most often used in a liturgical sense, denot ...

with use of the

1662 Events January–March * January 4 – Dziaddin Mukarram Shah becomes the new Sultan of Kedah, an independent kingdom on the Malay Peninsula, upon the death of his father, Sultan Muhyiddin Mansur. * January 10 – At the ...

1928 Events January * January – British bacteriologist Frederick Griffith reports the results of Griffith's experiment, indirectly demonstrating that DNA is the genetic material. * January 1 – Eastern Bloc emigration and defection: Boris B ...

or 2019 editions of the ''Book of Common Prayer''. The Church of Nigeria Prayer Book and the Prayer Book Society's 2008 ''Anglican Prayer Book'' are also authorized for use. The diocese ordains men only to the priesthood and women and men to the

diaconate A deacon is a member of the diaconate, an office in Christian churches that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions. Major Christian denominations, such as the Catholi ...

History

The Convocation of Anglicans in North America was launched by the Church of Nigeria as a missionary church body in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, with

Martyn Minns Martyn Minns (born April 16, 1943) is an English-born American bishop, serving in the Anglican Church of Nigeria. He was the founding missionary bishop of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA), under the patronage of the Anglican ...

as the first missionary bishop, elected in June 2006 and consecrated in

Abuja, Nigeria Abuja (; , ) is the capital city of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, strategically situated at the geographic midpoint of the country within the Federal Capital Territory (Nigeria), Federal Capital Territory (FCT). As the seat of the Federal G ...

, by Archbishop

Peter Akinola Peter Jasper Akinola (born 27 January 1944, in Abeokuta) is the former Anglican Primate of the Church of Nigeria. He is also the former bishop of Abuja and Archbishop of Province III, which covered the northern and central parts of the country ...

in August 2006. He was installed as Missionary Bishop of CANA in May 2007. The work of CANA led to the decision of the Church of Nigeria, in November 2011, to create three new missionary dioceses, the first of which was the Missionary Diocese of the Trinity, launched in 2012. CANA East was started as a diocese-in-formation in 2012 and held its first Synod at one of its church plants, Christ Church Anglican on the Main Line in

Wayne, Pennsylvania Wayne is an unincorporated community centered in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States, on the Main Line, a series of highly affluent Philadelphia suburbs located along the railroad tracks of the Pennsylvania Railroad and one of the ...

, on May 2–4, 2013 with

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

native Julian Dobbs as the first bishop. CANA East was unanimously accepted as a new ACNA diocese at the 5th Provincial Council, on 18 June 2013. Good-Shepherd-Church-Catonsville-MD

The ACNA and the

signed an agreement that stated that the three dioceses that have resulted from the

activity in the

, the Missionary Diocese of the Trinity, the Missionary Diocese of CANA East and the Missionary Diocese of CANA West, could decide their own affiliation in any of both churches, on 12 March 2019. This agreement was the result of the election of four suffragan bishops for the Missionary Diocese of the Trinity, composed mostly of Nigerian expatriates in the

, by the

, without the consultation of the ACNA College of Bishops. Until then all the three dioceses were members of both churches. The Missionary Diocese of CANA East announced on 21 May 2019 its decision to withdraw membership in the

to become solely a diocese of the Anglican Church in North America, with the name of Anglican Diocese of the Living Word. The Diocese announced the appointment of former Episcopal Bishop of Albany,

William H. Love William Howard Love (born August 14, 1957, in Dallas, Texas) is an American prelate. Love was the ninth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Albany, and he served in that role from 2007 until January 31, 2021. Beginning in April 2021, Love has serve ...

, as assisting bishop on 3 April 2021. A week later Daniel W. Herzog, also a former bishop of Albany, joined the diocese as a retired bishop. In 2022, Julian Dobbs' pastoral address at the ADLW synod received national media attention, with magazine columnist and blogger

Rod Dreher Ray Oliver Dreher Jr. (born February 14, 1967), known as Rod Dreher, is an American conservative writer and editor living in Hungary. He was a columnist with ''The American Conservative'' for 12 years, ending in March 2023, and remains an edito ...

referring to Dobbs as "the

based Brandon Christopher McCartney (born August 17, 1989), known professionally as Lil B and Lil B The BasedGod, is an American rapper. He began his career as a member of the Berkeley, California-based hip hop group the Pack in 2005, who signed wi ...

bishop". In the address, Dobbs denounced

abortion Abortion is the early termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. Abortions that occur without intervention are known as miscarriages or "spontaneous abortions", and occur in roughly 30–40% of all pregnan ...

(praising the ADLW-affiliated Sisters of St. Mary, which was sued by New York state for refusing to cover abortion in its health insurance plans), praised the United States as "a force that protected human freedoms and Christian liberties," and rejected progressive perspectives on

gender identity Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent and consistent with the in ...

(saying that " y confusion of the sexes is a distortion of God's created order.").

Parishes

As of 2021, the Diocese of the Living Word had 43 parishes. Notable parishes in the diocese include:

References

External links

Anglican Diocese of the Living Word Official Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Living Word, Anglican Diocese of the Dioceses of the Anglican Church in North America Anglican dioceses established in the 21st century Anglican realignment dioceses