Polity and Organization
The polity of the Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church is episcopal rather than congregationalist and follows the model of the Roman Catholic Church. The ALCC is governed by a metropolitan archbishop assisted by a vicar general and the Holy Synod (which consists of the bishops of the church and is concerned with matters of doctrine and polity) and the National Standing Committee (which includes lay members and is concerned with temporal administration and finance) and together they comprise the corporate Board of Directors. The ALCC operates in accordance with the 1983 Code of Canon Law of the Roman Catholic Church in areas not covered by its own canon law code.
The leadership of the Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church changed on December 1 with the resignations of its founding Metropolitan Archbishop and the Bishop of the Diocese of Michigan. On December 12, 2011, the Holy Synod ("composed of the Bishops) of the Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church elected and installed Archbishop Robert W. Edmondson as the Church's second Metropolitan Archbishop.
On 8 April 2012, the Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church (ALCC) underwent a major reorganization by the Metropolitan Archbishop. The ALCC now has two Dioceses. The Diocese of the Northeast has been renamed the Diocese of the East and given the territory East of the Western Border of Ontario, Michigan; Ohio, Kentucky, Kentucky, and Tennessee to the Atlantic Ocean; and also given jurisdiction over the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, and South America. The Dioceses formerly having jurisdiction over those areas have been suppressed, and its former diocesan bishops given Titular Dioceses and positions as Bishop Directors of the various major Church-wide offices in the Metropolitan Archbishop's Curia which are identical in scope and authority to the similar Dicasteries in the Roman Catholic Church's Curia. The Diocese of the West has been given jurisdiction over the rest of the United States including Alaska and Hawaii, Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean.
On the 24th day of April, 2012, Archbishop Robert W. Edmondson of the Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church and Archbishop Chris M. Hernandez, Archbishop Co-Adjutor of the North American Old Roman Catholic Church - Utrecht Succession signed a Concordat of Full Communion and Pledge to Full Unity.
The ALCC is a member of the Augustana Catholic Communion, the Sudanese Council of Churches USA and the Sudanese Council of Churches, and is in Full Communion with the Traditional Church of England, the Anglican Church-Traditional Rite (England, Scotland, and Wales,) the Anglican Church of the Americas, and the North American Old Roman Catholic Church - Utrecht Succession.
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