INDIAN OCEAN: Primate suspends 'all communication' with Episcopal Church, Anglican Church of Canada

From Episcopal Life Online-

Archbishop Ian Ernest of the Province of the Indian Ocean is the third Anglican primate in as many months to write to Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams expressing disquiet about recent developments in the Episcopal Church concerning issues of human sexuality.
In his April 12 letter, Ernest said that the Episcopal Church's "intention to proceed" with the consecration of the Rev. Mary Glasspool, a partnered lesbian, as a bishop suffragan in the Diocese of Los Angeles is "to disregard the mind of the rest of the [Anglican] Communion."

Ernest, chair of the Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa, said he felt "constrained by my conscience … to forthwith suspend all communication both verbal and sacramental" with the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada "until such time as they reverse their theological innovations." The suspension, he added, "would not include those bishops and clergy who have distanced themselves from the direction of the [Episcopal Church]."

Ernest's letter comes just days after Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda also wrote Williams raising concerns that the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion has assumed "enhanced responsibility" and expressing his dismay that its membership includes representatives from the U.S.-based Episcopal Church -- Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and Bishop-elect Ian Douglas of Connecticut.

"How can we expect the gross violators of biblical truth to sanction their own discipline when they believe they have done nothing wrong and further insist that their revisionist theology is actually the substance of Anglicanism?" Orombi wrote. "We have only to note the recent election and confirmation of an active lesbian as a suffragan bishop in the Diocese of Los Angeles to realize that [the Episcopal Church] has no interest in 'gracious restraint.'"

More here-

http://www.episcopal-life.org/81808_121456_ENG_HTM.htm

First women priests ordained in Antsiranana diocese

From Episcopal Life.

The Diocese of Antsiranana made history November 30 when it ordained its first three women priests during a joyful ceremony at St. Joseph's Church in Nosy Be, Madagascar.

The Rev. Marie Jeanne Befeno, the Rev. Vitasolo Roline and the Rev. Nivondrazana were ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Roger Chung Jaomalaza of the Diocese of Antsiranana, part of the Anglican Province of the Indian Ocean. Three other priests and eight deacons -- including three women deacons -- were also ordained during the service.

The three new women priests were ordained as deacons in June 2007 at the inauguration of the new Cathedral of St Matthew in Diego Suarez.

Led by Church of England Bishop Graham Cray of Maidstone, a delegation of women priests and other dignitaries from the Diocese of Canterbury attended the November 30 service.

http://www.episcopal-life.org/81808_103275_ENG_HTM.htm