St Michael and All Angels' is a Diocesan Mission of the Anglican Church in America: Diocese of the West. We are scheduled to begin services at the end of September - God willing. We are currently looking for a place to meet in either Long Beach or South Bay. If you would like to find out more about the St Michael and All Angels' Mission project please e-mail, or telephone the Rev. Peter Robinson at the phone number/email address given above.
The Anglican Church in America is a lineal decendent of the Church of England. The Church of England was established by Celtic and Roman Missionaries in the sixth and seventh centuries. From 1066 onwards the English Church was under the jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic Church for almost five hundred years. This led to the imposition of clerical celebacy and many other changes in the life of the Church, few of them good. In 1534 Henry VIII, frustrated by Imperial control of the Papacy and wishing to reform the English Church broke with Rome and established a National Catholic Church, the Church of England. After a brief reconciliation with Rome in the 1553-58, the Church of England again pursued an independent path under Queen Elizabeth I, who reformed the Catholic Church in England by looking at the Early Church and cutting away the errors and abuses that had crept in during the Middle Ages. The Church also drew up an English language service book of great beauty called the Book of Common Prayer in 1549, this book has seen only three substantial revision in 1552, 1789 and 1928. It is this liturgy that the Anglican hurch in America uses today.
The first Anglican service in California was held in 1578 when Sir Francis Drake landed near San Francisco. A permenant Anglican presence was first established in the New World with the establishment of Virginia in 1607. The Church of England grew steadily in the American Colonies until the Revolution War, when it reorganised as the Protestant Episcopal Church in 1785.
Over the next 180 years the Protestant Episcopal Church gradually grew to be one of the largest Non-Roman Catholic Churches in the USA. However in the 1960s and 70s, the Church experience a crisis of faith which led to the formation of the American Episcopal Church in 1968 to maintain the traditional doctrine and worship of the Episcopal Church. The American Episcopal Church gradually spread throughout the USA during the 1970s and 80s, and made contact with other Anglican groups at home and overseas.
These wider contacts bore fruit in 1991 when the American Episcopal Church became part of the wider Traditional Anglican Communion and changed its name to the Anglican Church in America. At present the Anglican Church in America has five dioceses and serves 43 states. Internationally, the Traditional Anglican Communion has provinces in North America, Europe, Africa, India, and Australia.
For more information about the Anglican Church in America and the Traditional Anglican Communion go to www.acahome.org
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