An Episcopal
priest from a Boston suburb who has chosen to leave the
church will travel to Nairobi next month to become a bishop
of the Anglican Church of Kenya, reports The Boston
Globe.
The Reverend
William L. Murdoch, rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in
West Newbury, is part of a growing trend of priests and
parishes that are leaving the Episcopal Church USA
over its appointment of openly gay bishop V. Gene
Robinson in New Hampshire.
"We feel the need
to separate from the Episcopal Church because of the
crisis brought about with the election of a noncelibate gay
bishop," Murdoch told the Globe.
Many of the
disaffected followers are affiliating with conservative
churches in Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Uganda that are
still a part of the global Anglican Communion, of
which the Episcopal Church is the U.S. branch.
The Advocatereported on this trend in an
in-depth feature on Archbishop Peter Akinola of
Nigeria, who recently installed a former Episcopal
minister as head of a group of about 30 breakaway
congregations in the United States. Bishop Martyn
Minns of Virginia is now considered a "missionary
bishop" of the Church of Nigeria.
Murdoch, 58, who
visited Kenya for the first time last month to do a
series of interviews, has been rector of All Saints since
1993.
According to the
Globe, Murdoch and another American priest from
Texas, the Reverend Will G. Atwood III, will be the
first American Episcopalians to become bishops in the Kenyan
province. In September a Virginia priest will be
ordained as a bishop in Uganda. (The Advocate)
