Last week, in a truly devastatingly tragic event, the worst thing to happen in the Church of England in many years, they voted to begin trial blessing services for homosexual marriages, which are of course directly contrary to scripture. In retrospect, it is remarkable that the C of E held out as long as it did, and I suspect part of that may have been due to some influence or respect for HM Queen Elisabeth II, Memory Eternal, and with her having departed, no longer the nominal leader of the Church of England, a subject she might have been deeply opposed to might have proceeded. Or it could be the result of other changes.
At any rate, this is extremely depressing, as it brings the C of E into line with the same failed condition we see in the Episcopal Church USA, the Scottish Episcopal Church, the Church of Ireland, and the Anglican Church of Canada, and the Anglican Church of New Zealand, with the exception of the very conservative Maori portion of that church where our friend
@Carl Emerson worships.
This leaves, as far as I am aware, only the Anglican Church in Wales and some parts of the Anglican Church in Australia, and the aforementioned Maori church, and also as far as I am aware, the Anglican Church in Hong Kong, as hold outs among the developed English speaking world that are members of the Anglican Communion.
It also increases greatly the risk of a schism with more conservative churches in Africa, Asia and South America, such as the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, the Church of Ghana, the Church of South India and the Mar Thoma Syrian Church.
On the bright side, there remain a large number of conservative, traditional Anglicans in the Church of England, and thus far these parishes have been allowed to operate even in the most liberal dioceses without much interference. In particular, in the Diocese of London, there is a great deal of tolerance for conservative churches, both of the low church Evangelical variety and the high church Anglo Catholic variety (the former being exemplified by Holy Trinity Brompton and the latter by St. Magnus the Martyr, All Saints Margaret Street and St. Bartholomew the Great. London is also home to “Royal Peculiars” under the direct control of the monarch, including Westminster Abbey, the Chapel of the Savoy, and the Temple, and these churches preserve a very traditional form of Anglican worship, with boys’ choirs (as well as a very excellent girls’ choir at the Temple), and use of services from the Book of Common Prayer (unfortunately the 1662 version, since the superior 1928 version was infamously blocked by Parliament, although large portions of it survive in Common Worship, which is the extremely flexible liturgical system introduced by the C of E in recent years.
This will also severely damage ecumenical relationships between all Anglican churches and various other churches including the persecuted churches of the Middle East and Ukraine, such as the Ukrainian Greek Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox churches, and the Maronite, Chaldean, Assyrian, Coptic, Armenian and Ethiopian churches.
Still, this is desperately sad news, news long expected but nonetheless difficult to receive with equanymity.