of Catholicism and Protestantism, while tolerating a range of expressions of evangelicalism and ceremony. Clergy and laity from all Anglican churchmanship traditions have been active in the formation of the Continuing movement.
While there are high church, broad church, and low church Continuing Anglicans, many Continuing churches are Anglo-Catholic with highly ceremonial liturgical practices. Others belong to a more Evangelical or low church tradition and tend to support the Thirty-nine Articles and simpler worship services. Morning Prayer, for instance, is often used instead of the Holy Eucharist for Sunday worship services, although this is not necessarily true of all low church parishes. This is often due more to the lack of a regular priest than to preference, given the importance of this Sacrament in Continuing Anglican practice.
Most Continuing churches in the United States reject the 1979 revision of the Book of Common Prayer by the Episcopal Church and use the 1928 version or prior official versions of the Book of Common Prayer for their services instead. In addition, Anglo-Catholic bodies may use the Anglican Missal or English Missal in celebrating the Eucharist.
Use of the Authorized Version of Holy Scripture (also known as the King James Version) during worship is also a common feature. This is done for many reasons, not the least of which are aesthetics, and in protest against what some claim to be liberal theology that updated versions such as the New Revised Standard Version are believed to embody.
The movement originated in the Episcopal Church in the United States of America and the Anglican Church of Canada. Related churches in other countries, such as the Anglican Catholic Church in Australia and the Church of England (Continuing), were founded later.
In 1976, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America voted to approve the ordination of women to the priesthood and to the episcopate and also provisionally adopted a new and doctrinally controversial Book of Common Prayer, later called the 1979 version. During the following year, 1977, several thousand dissenting clergy and laypersons responded to those actions by meeting in St. Louis, Missouri under the auspices of the Fellowship of Concerned Churchmen and adopted a theological statement, the Affirmation of St. Louis . The Affirmation expressed a determination "to continue in the Catholic Faith, Apostolic Order, Orthodox Worship and Evangelical Witness of the traditional Anglican Church, doing all things necessary for the continuance of the same."
Out of this meeting came a new church with the provisional name of the "Anglican Church in North America (Episcopal)". The first bishop of the new church, the Right Reverend Charles Doren, was consecrated by a retired bishop of the Episcopal Church, the Right Reverend Albert Chambers of the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, along with Bishop Francisco Pagtakhan of the Philippine Independent Church as co-consecrator.
Although expected to be the third bishop participating in Doren's consecration, the Right Reverend Mark Pae of the Anglican Church of Korea sent a letter of consent instead. This development left the new group open to charges of violating the customs of apostolic succession, in which three bishops customarily are present, although only one is necessary for a valid consecration.
The newly-consecrated Bishop Doren then joined with Bishops Chambers and Pagtakhan in consecrating as bishops the Reverend James Mote, the Reverend Robert Morse, and the Reverend Francis Watterson. Bishop Watterson left the movement shortly afterward and became a Roman Catholic priest.
During the process of ratifying the new church's constitution, disputes developed which split its dioceses into two American churches and a separate Canadian church. These were the Anglican Catholic Church led by Bishop Mote, the Diocese of Christ the King (now the Anglican Province of Christ the King) led by Bishop Morse, and the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada. In 1981, Bishop Doren and others left the A