The Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh, formerly known as the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh (Southern Cone), is a diocese of the Anglican Church in North America. It has parishes in the several counties of Western Pennsylvania. The diocese originated from the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, a diocese of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, founded in 1865. In 2008, the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh split into two bodies when the majority of its parishes left the Episcopal Church to become the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh.
The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh's schism began at its October 2008 diocesan convention when a majority of delegates passed a resolution to withdraw from the Episcopal Church and associate themselves with the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone. These actions were believed by the Episcopal Church to be ultra vires and null, and a minority of the pre-schism parishes and members remain in the Episcopal Church and continue as the Diocese of Pittsburgh of the Episcopal Church. Both dioceses claim to be the successor to the pre-schism diocese, and they both continued to use the same name until a legal decision found that the remaining Episcopalians (those who did not align with the Southern Cone) constituted the actual Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. The Southern Cone portion of the diocese was renamed the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh.
Before the 2008 schism, the diocese included 66 individual parishes and in 2004 had a total membership of 20,263. Membership totals have not been released since the realignment. In addition to its parishes, the diocese is home to numerous other Episcopal/Anglican organizations including the Community of Celebration, the Church Army, Rock the World Youth Mission Alliance, and the South American Missionary Society. Perhaps the most prominent of these is Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, a leading conservative evangelical seminary. The relationship of these various bodies to the two post-schism bodies in the diocese is currently in flux. The cathedral of the pre-schism diocese, Trinity Cathedral, located in downtown Pittsburgh, was shared by both the ACNA diocese and the Episcopal diocese until December 2011, when the cathedral chapter voted to align only with the Episcopal Diocese.
Famous quotes containing the words anglican and/or pittsburgh:
“The Anglican Church is marked by the grace and good sense of its forms, by the manly grace of its clergy. The gospel it preaches is, “By taste are ye saved.” ... It is not in ordinary a persecuting church; it is not inquisitorial, not even inquisitive, is perfectly well bred and can shut its eyes on all proper occasions. If you let it alone, it will let you alone. But its instinct is hostile to all change in politics, literature, or social arts.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The largest business in American handled by a woman is the Money Order Department of the Pittsburgh Post-office; Mary Steel has it in charge.”
—Lydia Hoyt Farmer (1842–1903)