A SERVICE last week at which seven men were “commissioned” for leadership positions in the Church of England was a response to the “tragic failure” of the House of Bishops to uphold doctrine, according to the Rector of the church in which the service was held.
The Revd William Taylor, the Rector of St Helen’s, Bishopsgate — a London church that has been in a “broken partnership” with the C of E since 2020 — said that the C of E’s bishops have taken a “pathway of self-serving and divisive schism” (News, 22 December 2020).
On Wednesday evening last week, St Helen’s hosted a service at which the former Bishop of Maidstone, the Rt Revd Rod Thomas, commissioned seven men “for Christian leadership in Church of England services”.
The position was further explained in a video message which was released last Friday, in which Mr Taylor said that they were the “equivalent of title posts” (i.e. first curacies), but that they would be “deployed differently in different contexts.
“Those commissioned for ministry at St Helen’s and her sister churches will be teaching the scriptures regularly within the congregations where they lead and will preside at informal church family meals, at which bread is broken and the death of the Lord Jesus is remembered.”
On Monday, a statement from Affirming Catholicism — an Anglican group representing those in the Catholic tradition who take an inclusive approach to various issues relating to sexuality and gender — suggested that this amounted to “eucharistic services led by lay people in roles not recognised by the wider Church of England”.
The chair of Affirming Catholicism, Matt Parkes, said: “Permitting a form of holy communion in the Church of England presided over by those not ordained makes a mockery of the sacraments.”
The statement called for “appropriate action” to be taken against the priests and bishops who took part in the service. Mr Parkes said: “We would hope that action taken by the bishops and archbishops would be commensurate with that faced by clergy who entered a same-sex marriage.”
Clergy who have entered same-sex civil marriages have had their licence to officiate revoked.
Mr Taylor argued that the commissioning was “necessary due to the tragic failure of the majority of bishops in the House of Bishops”. They had failed “doctrinally”, “procedurally”, “morally”, and “practically”, he said, making reference to the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) process, and recent votes in the General Synod on proposals that he described as “faithless”.
The Bishops, he said, “have caused schism by teaching error and by failing to uphold truth”. He endorsed schemes put in place by the Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC) to offer “alternative spiritual oversight” and an alternative means for paying parish share (News, 18 November 2023).
The president of the CEEC, a former Bishop of Blackburn, the Rt Revd Julian Henderson, led prayers at Wednesday’s service, and the group’s national director, Canon John Dunnett, read a lesson.
Before the service, Bishop Henderson said that those being commissioned had shown “courage” in “making a stand against the direction of travel that the Church of England is taking at the moment by choosing not to be ordained by those who wish to change the Church’s teaching and practice about relationships and marriage”.
He also commended them for staying in the C of E when “others are leaving”.
Mr Taylor distinguished the commissioning service from ordination, and said that he expected the seven would be ordained “less publicly, in due course, by Anglican bishops not in partnership with the unorthodox bishops of the Church of England”.
The video released by St Helen’s did not show the act of commissioning, nor did it reveal the identities of the seven men who were commissioned.
A Facebook post by St Anne’s, Limehouse, however, congratulated the church’s assistant minister, Mervin Kissoon, on being commissioned, and included a photograph of Bishop Thomas laying a hand on Mr Kissoon’s head.
After the service, Canon Dunnett said that “with all that’s going on in the Church of England at the moment, there is a very real risk that some people will not be able to exercise leadership and ministry, and the commissioning of these people this evening is going to make that possible.”
Several ordinands on both sides of the LLF debate have spoken to the Church Times in the past about their misgivings about the future of the C of E’s teaching on relationships and marriage (News, 23 February).
Last October, a group of ordinands opposed to the changes wrote to the Archbishops saying that the process left them feeling “vulnerable and concerned” (News, 10 November 2023). The letter was signed by 161 ordinands, representing both Evangelical and Catholic traditions.
Both Bishop Henderson and Canon Dunnett have been signatories of letters from the Alliance, a coalition of Evangelical and Catholic opponents to the introduction of blessings for same-sex couples.
The service on Wednesday was not an official Alliance event, Mr Taylor said, but he drew attention to the support of the CEEC’s leadership, along with those attending the event from New Wine and Holy Trinity, Brompton.
He echoed calls, made in Alliance letters and on the floor of the General Synod, for structural changes in the C of E, characterising this as necessary “for those who remain faithful to Jesus and his teaching”.
A spokesperson at Church House said: “The lead bishop for LLF, alongside the LLF staff team, are in conversation with different networks in order to bring further detail to proposals to the House of Bishops in October.
“We are seeking to move forward as one church. That will require grace, realism and a recognition that, as Christians, we hold a variety of views on these questions, all of which are held with integrity and all of which deserve respect.”