Draft:Anglican Free Communion International

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The Archbishop Primate The Most Revd. Raúl Eugenio Toro Jr. Elected by the Synod of Bishops, 2022 Seat: International Office of the Primate · Jacksonville, Florida Presides over the College of Bishops

Of Latino origin and resident in the United States, Archbishop Toro has championed a vision of reform, decentralization, and inclusive expansion across the Communion. His leadership is marked by a pastoral spirit, intercontinental work with churches in Latin America, North America, and Europe, and a steady defense of a truly Anglican Church — free, faithful, and open. As Primate he presides over the College of Bishops, represents the Communion internationally, and coordinates her synods, pastoral visits, and major doctrinal decisions.

The Province of North America Bishop John Oliver, Ph.D. United States Archbishop Haiver Caballero Latino Ministries · USA

The Province of the Caribbean Bishop Leon H. Peters Caribbean

The Province of Central America Bishop Randall Murillo Costa Rica

The Province of South America Archbishop Guido Velarde Bolivia

The Province of Europe Bishop Brian Rodford Netherlands

The Province of of Africa Archbishop Euloge Valery Massamba Republic of the Congo

The Province of Asia East Archbishop Sthephen L. Villaester Philippines

The Province of Asia West Archbishop Dr. P. Saloman Jobs India

For more than a century the Anglican Free Communion has gathered the faithful around the Word rightly preached and the Sacraments duly administered. From the union of three small churches in Victorian England — under the first Primus, Mar Leon Chechemian, to the dioceses and missions of four continents today, we have kept the apostolic deposit through schism, reconciliation, and renewal. We are heirs of the Ancient British Church and of the wider Anglican settlement; we are not a federation of opinions but a fellowship gathered at one altar. In 2020, when division came for the sake of orthodoxy, the Communion held fast and holds fast still.

In 1890 Bishop Leon Chechemian once a vardapet of the Armenian Catholic Church and lately consecrated bishop in England, gathered the faithful into the Free Protestant Church of England. Seven years later, on the second day of November 1897, his church united with the Ancient British Church and the Nazarene Episcopal Church to form the Free Protestant Episcopal Church: an Anglican body independent of the Church of England, yet keeping the historic episcopate and the catholic faith of the undivided Church. From the beginning two convictions held the work together: that bishops must stand within the apostolic succession, and that the Communion must be recognized as a lawfully constituted religious body. Both were vindicated by 1917, when an archdeacon of the Communion was exempted from wartime conscription on grounds of his clergy status, a quiet but unambiguous civil recognition.

For much of the twentieth century the Communion remained small. Many clergy passed through it to receive valid orders before moving on to other bodies. Yet the line was kept; the faith was guarded; and in our own time the Communion has grown to twenty-five provinces in different states and nations.

In 1885 Chechemian emigrated to the United Kingdom. He travelled first to Scotland, where he lived modestly on charity, studied at New College, Edinburgh, and worked with the Scottish Reformation Society. From Edinburgh he moved to Belfast and quickly became a sought-after lecturer in the city's Protestant pulpits, drawing crowds with the witness of an Eastern cleric who had embraced the Gospel afresh.

Around 1889 he gathered the faithful of Belfast into a new congregation he named the Free Protestant Church of England — a meeting place broad enough to welcome evangelical believers of several denominations under one episcopal roof. On 4 May 1890 he was consecrated bishop for the Ancient British Church by Mar Theophilus I (Charles Isaac Stevens), assisted by Alfred Spencer Richardson of the Reformed Episcopal Church in England — securing for his young church a recognised place within the historic episcopate.

Later that same year, on 15 August 1890, he founded the United Armenian Catholic Church to give his fellow Armenian refugees in Britain a non-Roman home; and shortly after he was received into the Church of Ireland and licensed by Archbishop Plunket of Dublin — an extraordinary breadth of ministry for a single year.

His crowning work came on 2 November 1897, at St Stephen's Church in East Ham, London, when his Free Protestant Church united with Stevens' Ancient British Church and James Martin's Nazarene Episcopal Church to form the Free Protestant Episcopal Church. Chechemian was appointed its first Primus, and that same day he and Martin consecrated George Maaers and Frederick Boucher to share in the leadership of the new body.

After three years guiding the Communion through its fledgling life, Chechemian resigned the primacy on 30 December 1900, handing the office to Mar Theophilus I. He was naturalised as a British subject the following year while still resident in Edinburgh, and continued in quiet ministry until his death on 3 December 1920.

More than a century later, hundreds of bishops across the world still trace their orders through Mar Leon — a witness to one Armenian scholar's conviction that the apostolic faith belongs not to one nation or jurisdiction, but to the whole Church of Christ.

Charles Isaac Stevens was born on 28 November 1835 at Clerkenwell, London, the son of Isaac Thomas and Anna (Morgan) Stevens, and was baptised in the parish church of St Luke on 5 June 1836. He came to ordained ministry through the Reformed Episcopal Church of England, serving as one of its presbyters until 1879 — a Reformed Anglican formation that would mark his churchmanship for the rest of his life.

On 6 March 1879 he was consecrated bishop by Richard Williams Morgan, assisted by Frederick George Lee and Dr John Thomas Seccombe — the consecration that drew Morgan's Syriac Orthodox line, by way of Jules Ferrette and Mar Ignatius Peter IV of Antioch, into the wider stream of British independent Catholic orders. By this single act Stevens entered an apostolic succession that the Communion still preserves today.

In 1889 he was raised to the patriarchate of the Ancient British Church as Mar Theophilus I, second Patriarch of that body. The following May, on 4 May 1890, it was Mar Theophilus who, with Bishop Alfred Spencer Richardson, consecrated Leon Chechemian for the Ancient British Church — the act that would, in time, make the founding union of 1897 possible.

When the Free Protestant Episcopal Church was constituted at St Stephen's, East Ham, on 2 November 1897, Stevens stood beside Chechemian and James Martin as one of its three founding bishops. Three years later, on 30 December 1900, upon Chechemian's resignation, he was appointed second Primus of the Free Protestant Episcopal Church, holding together the offices of Patriarch and Primus until his death.

Stevens governed the Communion through the long Edwardian years and into the early storms of the First World War. He died on 2 February 1917, having served the FPEC as its Primus for sixteen years and the Ancient British Church as Patriarch for almost three decades. Mar Jacobus I Antipas (James Martin) succeeded him in both offices.

If Mar Leon Chechemian was the Communion's founder, Mar Theophilus I was its bridge — the bishop in whose person the ancient streams of Britain met the witness of Eastern Armenia, and through whom both passed safely into the twentieth century.

What We Believe The faith once delivered. The Anglican Free Communion holds the historic Christian faith as confessed by the undivided Church of the first millennium, received in the formularies of the Anglican tradition, and guarded — at cost — through every generation since 1897.

The Lambeth Quadrilateral · 1888

“The Holy Scriptures, as containing all things necessary to salvation; the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds, as the sufficient statement of faith; the two Sacraments ordained by Christ Himself; and the Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God.”

Six confessions, one common faith. I Of Holy Scripture The canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments contain all things necessary to salvation, being the very Word of God written.

II Of the Holy Trinity We worship one God in three Persons — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — of one substance, power, and eternity.

III Of the Incarnation The Eternal Son took flesh of the Virgin Mary, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, rose bodily on the third day, and ascended into glory.

IV Of the Catholic Creeds We confess without reserve the Apostles', Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds, holding them to be the rule of faith for the universal Church.

V Of the Sacraments Christ ordained two Sacraments of the Gospel — Holy Baptism and the Lord's Supper — as effectual signs of grace and means by which He works invisibly within us.

VI Of the Apostolic Ministry From the Apostles' time there have been these orders of Ministers in Christ's Church: Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, preserved among us in unbroken succession.

The Book of Common Prayer. Our common worship is shaped by the great Anglican liturgies. Each church within the Communion uses its own Book of Common Prayer, chosen from an approved list of historic and authorized editions — read in the vernacular tongues of the peoples among whom we serve. The Daily Office and the Holy Eucharist are the heartbeat of our life together.

To preach Christ, and Him crucified. The Communion exists for the proclamation of the Gospel, the worship of the Triune God, the right administration of the Sacraments, and the works of mercy. We hold the Scriptures and the Creeds without addition or subtraction — a commitment for which the Communion has, when necessary, accepted the cost of division rather than the surrender of the faith once delivered.