Please contact CPRectors@stmartinsepiscopal.org if you wish to be associated with Communion Partners. Bishops may contact CPBishops@diowla.org.

See what others have said about the Communion Partners.

“The Communion Partner Rectors met at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Houston November 5-7. Forty rectors were able to be present. We were supported by the Bishop of Texas, Western Louisiana, Western Kansas and Central Florida, who were able to be present as representatives of the sixteen bishops involved with Communion Partners.”
- The Rev. Dr. Christopher Seitz

“I think the Communion Partners Plan is the best way forward during the current challenges we are facing. For the first time, we have a fellowship not only of bishops, but rectors as well; and we have need your support for a long time.”
- The Rt. Rev. Don A. Wimberly, Bishop of Texas

“…We are spending a great deal of time defining what we are not, and we need to spend more time telling people who we are – firmly committed to the developing Covenant and Windsor principles and mindful of the proper parameters of the Episcopal Church, but not limiting our work – nor our relationships – to TEC alone.”
- The Rev. Dr. Chuck Alley, who serves on the advisory group of rectors and is rector of St. Matthew’s, Richmond

“…it seems to be widely agreed in the [Lambeth] Conference that internal pastoral and liturgical care, strengthened by arrangements like the suggested Communion Partners initiative in the USA…are the way we should go if we want to avoid further ecclesial confusion…” [from his 'Lambeth Presidential Address' on 3 August, 2008]
- Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury

“I believe that Communion Partners is, in this season, the way of solid Anglican witness to Christ’s Gospel in the United States: faithful, peaceable, steadfast, and bound to the full mission of the Anglican Communion.”
- Ephraim Radner, Professor of Historical Theology Wycliffe College, University of Toroto

“I am delighted to support the work of the Communion Partner plan, which exists to seek a solution to the breakdown in the Anglican Communion by dialogue, friendship and understanding.”
- George Leonard Carey, the Rt. Rev. and Rt. Hon. The Lord Carey of Clifton, 103rd Archbishop of Canterbury

“The Communion Partner Plan is perhaps the last great hope for keeping what is left of the Episcopal Church out of the opposing trenches of relativistic revisionism or schism…noting that the Church fathers said the two great enemies of faith were heresy and schism – the did not say one was better that the other – that both were tools of the devil to break apart the family of God. The Communion Partner Plan is one answer of getting the church back in the middle of the road and keeping it from the ICU that awaits them in either of these trenches.”
- The Rev. Dr. Russell J. Levenson, Jr., St. Martin’s, Houston

“As one of the three Communion Partner primates of the Communion Partners Plan, our role is to give dioceses, parishes, and provinces pastoral guidance and care…to create a strong link/bridge between the members of the Anglican Communion. The Communion Partners Plan, with its growing list of primates, bishops and rectors, is a positive way forward through the present crisis of division that we face in the Anglican Communion. As per our vow to the Windsor principles and Anglican Covenant, this allows us to strengthen a common fellowship centered on the biblical teachings of the Gospel. I am happy to offer it my support and give full respect and love to our brothers and sisters, let alone the comprehensive and objective share of ideas and views. This gives a very positive and good hope for the future of the Anglican Communion.”
- The Rt. Rev. Valentine Mokiwa, The Fifth Archbishop of the Anglican Church of Tanzania

For our part we will continue to pray for solid progress at the level of Covenant Design Committee work and for the Instruments of Communion, especially the Primates Meeting shortly to commence. We cannot know how the efforts associated with Common Cause will turn out, including the idea of building a ‘new province,’ but we note with interest that recent news indicates the Archbishop of Canterbury has suggested ways for this endeavor to move forward in relationship to the Instruments of Communion. Together with ACI, we have been concerned that failure to attend to the integrity of Dioceses which see women’s ordination a matter still in reception, is creating unnecessary stress and strain. We ask that the wider Anglican Communion offer guidance here, as a variegated polity elsewhere appears to be both possible and charitably negotiated.

We do not know how the proposal for a new province will be received nor are we entirely clear what its proponents are proposing; that is probably unavoidable given the hardships all around. We understand that many see the situation as demanding this option. For our part, we accept the promise of those associated with this movement that they will honor our own commitments. Communion Partners will pray for the Common Cause proponents and will assume that promise of cooperation entails a charitable acceptance that another way forward is to be honored and that we can move forward on parallel tracks and not ‘recruit’ from each others’ daily purpose, honoring the jurisdictional integrities of respective bishops. God will be in charge of the next season, as He has always been.

When the Primates meet in February we anticipate that our separate ways of moving forward will be acknowledged and honored. We pledge our prayers for all involved and ask God’s blessing on all of us in a very difficult time. With gratitude for his grace and mercy, again this 2009 Epiphany we remain, yours in Christ, on behalf of Communion Partners,

(The Rt Revd) Bruce MacPherson, Communion Partner Bishops
(The Revd Dr) Russell Levenson, Communion Partner Rectors
(The Revd Canon Professor) Christopher Seitz, Communion Partners and ACI