ANGLICAN COMMUNION
St. Matthew’s identifies with the world-wide Anglican Communion, which is a branch of Christ’s One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church comprising over 80 million members in 44 regional and national member churches (called Provinces) around the globe in over 160 countries. Our connection to the Anglican Communion is provided by oversight from The Most Rev’d Gregory Venables, Archbishop of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone.
ANGLICAN CHURCH IN NORTH AMERICA (ACNA)
The Anglican Church in North America is a new emerging province of the Anglican Communion, comprised of over 750 parishes and 100,000 members in Canada and the United States. The ACNA is organized into multiple dioceses (networks and clusters of churches), each guided by an overseeing bishop.
By God’s grace, the ACNA seeks to be:
Biblical - We look to the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments to be the inspired Word of God, containing all things necessary for salvation, and to be the final authority and unchangeable standard for Christian faith and life.
Catholic – We affirm the historic faith of the undivided church as declared in the three Catholic Creeds: the Apostles’, the Nicene, and the Athanasian. Concerning the seven Councils of the undivided Church, we affirm the teaching of the first four Councils and the Christological clarifications of the fifth, sixth and seventh Councils, in so far as they are agreeable to the Holy Scriptures.
Sacramental – We confess Baptism and the Supper of the Lord to be Sacraments ordained by Christ Himself in the Gospel, and thus to be ministered with unfailing use of His words of institution and of the elements ordained by Him.
Episcopal – We believe that the godly historic Episcopate as an inherent part of the apostolic faith and practice, and is therefore integral to the fullness and unity of the Body of Christ.
Anglican – We honour the Anglican Book of Common Prayer as a standard of liturgical worship and the Thirty-Nine Articles as expressing the Anglican response to certain doctrinal issues present at the time of the Reformation.
ANGLICAN NETWORK IN CANADA (ACiC)
St. Matthew’s is a parish within the ACNA diocese called the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC). Our diocesan bishop is the Right Rev’d Donald Harvey. The suffragen bishop for Western Canada is the Right Rev’d Dr Trevor Walters.
ABBOTSFORD CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP NETWORK
At the local level, Saint Matthew’s believes in working with Christians of all denominations to promote unity and to spread the good news about Jesus. Therefore, we work with the Abbotsford Christian Leadership Network, which exists to unite the whole church and to love the whole city with the whole gospel.
