Anglican Church of Mexico

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The Anglican Church of Mexico (Spanish: La Iglesia Anglicana de México) is the Anglican province in Mexico, and includes 5 dioceses. The primate is the Presiding Bishop and Bishop of Mexico, The Most Revd. Carlos Touche Porter.

Official name

Once known as The Church of Jesus, the Anglican Church of Mexico is better known today as La Iglesia Anglicana de México.

History

The Anglican Church of Mexico can trace its roots to Mexico's war for independence in 1810, but it was the Reform War that led to the foundation of the Church. Religious reforms in 1857 secured freedom of religion, separating the Roman Catholic Church from government and politics. In 1860, the newly formed Church of Jesus contacted the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, seeking leadership, guidance, and support. In 1958, the fourth missionary bishop of Mexico was the first of the Church's bishops to be consecrated on Mexican soil. The Church became an autonomous Province of the Anglican Communion in 1995.

Membership

Today, there are 12 self-supporting Anglican parishes in Mexico, and many more mission congregations.

Structure

The polity of the Anglican Church of Mexico is episcopal, as is true of all other Anglican churches. The church maintains a system of geographical parishes organized into dioceses. There are 5 of these, each headed by a bishop:

• The Diocese of Cuernavaca
• The Diocese of Mexico (the title refers to Mexico City)
• The Diocese of Northern Mexico
• The Diocese of Southeastern Mexico
• The Diocese of Western Mexico

The reforms of Benito Juárez allowed the Anglican Church of Mexico to come into being.

Each diocese is divided into archdeaconries, each headed by a senior priest. The archdeaconries are further subdivided into parishes, headed by a parish priest.

Worship and liturgy

The Anglican Church of Mexico embraces three orders of ministry: deacon, priest, and bishop. A local variant of the Book of Common Prayer is used.

Doctrine and practice

The center of the Anglican Church of Mexico's teaching is the life and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The basic teachings of the church, or catechism, includes:

• Jesus Christ is fully human and fully God. He died and was resurrected from the dead.
• Jesus provides the way of eternal life for those who believe.
• The Old and New Testaments of the Bible were written by people "under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit". The Apocrypha are additional books that are used in Christian worship, but not for the formation of doctrine.
• The two great and necessary sacraments are Holy Baptism and Holy Eucharist
• Other sacramental rites are confirmation, ordination, marriage, reconciliation of a penitent, and unction.
• Belief in heaven and hell as states of being, and Jesus's return in glory.

The threefold sources of authority in Anglicanism are scripture, tradition, and reason. These three sources uphold and critique each other in a dynamic way. This balance of scripture, tradition and reason is traced to the work of Richard Hooker, a sixteenth century apologist. In Hooker's model, scripture is the primary means of arriving at doctrine and things stated plainly in scripture are accepted as true. Issues that are ambiguous are determined by tradition, which is checked by reason.^[1]

Ecumenical relations

Unlike many other Anglican churches, the Anglican Church of Mexico is not a member of the ecumenical World Council of Churches.^[2]

References

Further reading

• Anglicanism, Neill, Stephen. Harmondsworth, 1965.

External links

• The Anglican Diocese of Southeastern México
• Anglican history in Mexico
• St. Mark´s Parish, Anglican Church in Guadalajara, Mex.
• http://www.iglesiaanglicanademexico.org/
• Christ Church Parish Mexico
• Catedral de San Miguel y Todos los Angeles, Cuernavaca, Morelos. MEXICO

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