Anglican Church in North America

Founded in 2009, its constitution and canons ratified at an inaugural assembly in Bedford, Texas, on 22 June 2009, by congregations and dioceses that had departed the Episcopal Church and by other Anglican bodies in North America. It is the third case on this site of a denomination formed by congregations leaving another one, after the Presbyterian Church in America in 1973 and the Global Methodist Church in 2022 — and, like both of those, it wrote its property rule with the cost of leaving fresh in mind. This profile describes what the two Anglican bodies now provide. It takes no view on the separation or on the disagreements that produced it.

• governing document Constitution and Canons of the Anglican Church in North America, as ratified 25 June 2026 (the edition read for this profile)
• governing document Constitution of the ACNA, Article II.1, listing the jurisdictions that constituted the Province
• secondary Britannica, Anglican Church in North America — founding and structure (accessed 2026-07-31)

The provincial office is in Ambridge, Pennsylvania. The province comprises 29 dioceses, several of them non-geographic, together with a jurisdiction for the armed forces — an arrangement in which a congregation's diocese is not necessarily determined by where it stands.

• secondary The Living Church, on the Provincial Council's composition of four-person delegations from each of 29 dioceses (accessed 2026-07-31)

Calls itself a province of the Anglican Communion tradition and a church, episcopally led and synodically governed — the same formula the Episcopal Church uses. What the two mean by it materially is where they part.

• governing document Constitution of the Anglican Church in North America, Article XII

1,027 congregations reported for 2024, a net increase of 14 over the previous year, and for the first time 27 congregations reporting average attendance above 500, up from 16.

• statistical ACNA provincial statistics for 2024, reported by The Living Church (accessed 2026-07-31)

Membership of 130,111 in 2024, up 1,997 or 1.5%, with average Sunday attendance of 96,148, up 11,354 or 13.4% — a third consecutive year of double-digit attendance growth. The comparison with the Episcopal Church needs care rather than arithmetic. That body reports roughly 413,000 in average Sunday attendance, about four times this one, and did not publish a membership figure at all for 2024. Two bodies counting differently, at different scales, in different directions, are not usefully reduced to a ratio.

• statistical ACNA provincial statistics for 2024, reported by The Living Church (accessed 2026-07-31)

Article XII is the province's answer to the Dennis Canon, and it has a final sentence that most summaries of it omit — including, until the constitution was read, this profile: "All church property, both real and personal, owned by each member congregation now and in the future is and shall be solely and exclusively owned by each member congregation and shall not be subject to any trust interest in favor of the Province or any other claim of ownership arising out of the canon law of this Province. Where property is held in a different manner by any diocese or grouping, such ownership shall be preserved." That last clause matters enough to change the answer. The rule is not that every ACNA congregation owns its building; it is that the *Province* asserts no interest, and that existing diocesan arrangements survive. A body assembled in 2009 from groups arriving out of several different structures — including dioceses that had held property at diocesan level — did not impose a single ownership model on them. So "mixed" is the honest value, and the variation runs by diocese rather than by state. The disclaimer is also carefully bounded in its own terms: it excludes claims "arising out of the canon law of this Province," and the province is not the diocese. Several dioceses have adopted their own provisions to close the same gap at their level, often headed "No Denominational or Diocesan Trust in Congregation Property," but those are diocesan enactments and were not surveyed.

• governing document Constitution of the Anglican Church in North America, Article XII, Ownership of Property (ratified 25 June 2026)
• governing document Anglican Diocese of the Upper Midwest, Constitution and Canons — 'No Denominational or Diocesan Trust in Congregation Property' (accessed 2026-07-31)

No provincial trust, by constitutional provision. The comparison across the site's departure-formed bodies holds, and each foreclosed the claim in the idiom of what it left: the Presbyterian Church in America denied "any right of reversion whatsoever" to any court and added a covenant never to attempt possession; the Global Methodist Church put freedom from a trust clause among its constitutional articles; this body declared congregational ownership "solely and exclusively" and named the canonical trust as the thing excluded — while, alone among the three, preserving whatever different arrangements its constituent dioceses brought with them.

• governing document Constitution of the ACNA, Article XII
• governing document Book of Church Order (PCA) 25-9 and 25-10, and Book of Doctrines and Discipline (GMC) ¶206.2, for the comparison

Nothing is owed to the Province, which asserts no interest in congregational property. Whether anything is owed to the diocese depends on that diocese, since Article XII preserves ownership arrangements that differ. Congregations arriving in this province from the Episcopal Church generally did so having already litigated or negotiated the property question with their former diocese; that history is described in the Episcopal profile and is not retold here.

• governing document Constitution of the ACNA, Article XII

The obligation runs from dioceses rather than from congregations, which is a genuine structural difference from most bodies on this site. Article XIII is a single sentence: "Each member diocese or network (whether regional or affinity-based) or any group of dioceses organized into a distinct jurisdiction agrees to share the cost of operating the Province as provided by canon." Note what it does not say. There is no provincial claim on a congregation, no rate, and no formula in the constitution — the amount is left to canon and the duty is the diocese's. What a congregation owes, it owes its diocese, on diocesan terms that were not surveyed for this profile.

• governing document Constitution of the ACNA, Article XIII, Finances

The province's sanction is membership itself, and it is calibrated. Under Article XIV a member diocese or network may be removed from membership "after due warning from the Executive Committee," but only on a two-thirds vote of Provincial Council members present and voting *and* at least a majority in two of the three orders of bishops, clergy and laity. Set against that, Article II.3 lets a diocese leave whenever it likes. A body that can be expelled only by a double supermajority, and can depart at will, is not one with much leverage over a reluctant payer.

• governing document Constitution of the ACNA, Article XIV, Removal from Membership
• governing document Constitution of the ACNA, Article II.3

The congregation, within diocesan norms. Every congregation "shall handle its own finances," and the canons assign to each diocese the norms for "the calling, duties and support of Rectors and other Clergy." The province sets no scale and no minimum.

• governing document Canons of the ACNA, Title I Canon 6 Section 3, and Title II Canon 7

The congregation pays its clergy from its own income, as in the Episcopal arrangement and in every other Anglican body on this site.

• governing document Constitution of the Anglican Church in North America, Article XII, on congregational ownership of property and assets

The province operates a retirement plan for clergy and church staff, with a published summary plan description. Its terms, and whether participation is required of congregations, were not established for this profile.

• the body's own statement Anglican Church in North America Retirement Plan, Summary Plan Description (accessed 2026-07-31) — self-description

The diocese. "Rectors shall be domiciled in the diocese," and clergy hold their standing there rather than in the congregation they serve. Because a number of this province's dioceses are non-geographic — organised by affinity rather than territory — a congregation's bishop is not necessarily the bishop of the ground it stands on, which is a real departure from the Episcopal arrangement and from most bodies on this site.

• governing document Canons of the ACNA, Title II Canon 7, Of Rectors and Other Congregational Clergy
• governing document Constitution of the ACNA, Article II, listing member dioceses and networks whether regional or affinity-based

The congregation calls and the bishop holds an absolute veto — which makes this a stronger episcopal check than the Episcopal Church's, and that is the reverse of what the property rules would lead a reader to expect. The provincial canon is one sentence: "No Rector may be called to or dismissed from a congregation without the consent of the Bishop. No other clergy may be called or dismissed from a congregation without consultation with the Bishop." A diocese may adopt canons not in conflict with that. Compare the two Anglican bodies directly, against the Episcopal canons as published. There, Canon III.9.3.a.2 requires only that nominees' names go to the Ecclesiastical Authority, that up to sixty days be allowed for it to communicate with the vestry, and that the vestry consider what it says — a hearing, not a veto. Here the bishop's consent is required outright, and required again to dismiss. So the province that took less power over buildings took considerably more over pulpits. Beyond that consent requirement the province devolves: "Norms for the calling, duties and support of Rectors and other Clergy, and the dissolution of a pastoral relation shall be provided by each Diocese."

• governing document Canons of the ACNA, Title I Canon 6 Section 4.1 — no Rector called or dismissed without the consent of the Bishop
• governing document Canons of the ACNA, Title II Canon 7 — norms for calling, duties, support and dissolution provided by each Diocese

The congregation calls, pays and handles its own finances — every congregation "shall handle its own finances" under the canons — so it is the employer in the sense this field asks about. The qualification is that it can neither engage nor release its rector without the bishop's consent, which places it alongside the Presbyterian bodies rather than with the Southern Baptist case: the congregation hires, but not alone. One further feature has no parallel elsewhere on the site. The rector is not merely employed by the vestry; he presides over it. The presbyter in charge "shall always be a member of the governing board and its presiding officer except as provided by diocesan canon." The body that would in most traditions be the employer is chaired by the person it employs.

• governing document Canons of the ACNA, Title I Canon 6 Sections 3-5 — congregational finances, clergy consent, and the governing board

A congregation cannot dismiss its rector on its own: the bishop's consent is required to dismiss as well as to call. Assistant clergy and lay employees, by contrast, "serve under the direction of and at the pleasure of the Rector except as may be otherwise provided under local law" — so within the staff the rector's authority is unusually direct. Dissolution norms are set by each diocese.

• governing document Canons of the ACNA, Title I Canon 6 Section 4.1-2
• governing document Canons of the ACNA, Title II Canon 7

A rector is protected against his vestry by the same clause that constrains his calling: dismissal requires the bishop's consent. That is a real protection, though a different one from the Episcopal Church's. There, Canon III.9.15.a locks the relationship from both ends — a rector may not resign without the vestry's consent, nor be removed against his will — so the parties are bound to each other. Here the bishop holds the key to the door in both directions instead. What the province does not do is guarantee placement; and the detailed terms are diocesan, so the strength of the protection varies with the diocese.

• governing document Canons of the ACNA, Title I Canon 6 Section 4.1
• governing document Canons of the ACNA, Title II Canon 7

Three bodies with distinct competences. The Provincial Council meets annually, adopts the budget and holds elections, and seats a four-person delegation from each of the 29 dioceses — equal representation regardless of size. The Provincial Assembly meets at least once every five years and ratifies canonical changes, with delegations sized in proportion to each diocese's attendance. The College of Bishops elects the Archbishop. The division is worth noting: equal diocesan representation for ordinary business, proportional representation for constitutional change, and the bishops alone for the primacy.

• secondary The Living Church, on the Provincial Council, Provincial Assembly and College of Bishops (accessed 2026-07-31)

A diocesan bishop oversees the congregation, and the province leaves his selection and tenure to the diocese — which is itself the structural choice worth recording, since several member dioceses are affinity-based rather than territorial and arrived with their own arrangements. Where the province does legislate is over its own primate, and there the term limit is firm: the Archbishop is elected by the College of Bishops from among bishops with jurisdiction to serve a five-year term, and may be elected to "a second term of office but not a third." An Assembly is always held to mark the end of an Archbishop's five-year term. If the office falls vacant before a term completes, the Dean of the Province becomes Interim and the College elects a successor to a fresh five-year term. The enum records the term-limited pattern the province sets for itself. The qualification is real and should be read with it: for the diocesan bishop who actually oversees a given congregation, tenure is a diocesan matter, and no provincial mandatory retirement age was located in the constitution and canons.

• governing document Constitution of the ACNA, on the election of the Archbishop for a five-year term, and a second term but not a third
• governing document Canons of the ACNA, on the Assembly marking the end of an Archbishop's term and on interim succession by the Dean of the Province

The most specific standing requirement on this site, and it can be read as a considered answer to the risk on either side — that a bishop is unaccountable, or that he is exposed to a single accuser. A bishop may be charged "by three Bishops of this Church with jurisdiction, or by not fewer than ten Presbyters, Deacons, or adult baptized members of this Church in good standing, of whom at least two shall be Presbyters." Locality is then required as well: one presbyter and at least six of the lay accusers must belong either to the diocese where the alleged offence occurred or to the diocese where the bishop is canonically resident. Charges must be in writing, "signed and sworn to by all the accusers," with the grounds set out "with reasonable certainty of time, place and circumstance." So a bishop cannot be charged by one person, and cannot be charged by a distant faction either. Ten laypeople of his own diocese can begin proceedings against him without any bishop's agreement. Charges go to the Archbishop, his delegate, or the College of Bishops, and are referred to a Board of Inquiry of five presbyters and five adult baptized members "none of whom shall belong to the Diocese of the accused," eight forming a quorum. The Board hears the accusers and their proof and determines "whether, upon matters of law and fact... there are reasonable grounds to put the accused to trial." Testimony is recorded and transcribed. The canons also let a bishop clear his own name: where he believes rumours are circulating about his personal or official character, he may — with the consent of two other members of the College of Bishops — demand in writing that an investigation be made. From 1 January 2027 the body hearing a bishop's case is renamed the Disciplinary Tribunal for a Bishop.

• governing document Canons of the ACNA (ratified 25 June 2026), Title IV Canon 4 Sections 1-5, Of Presentments of Bishops
• governing document Canons of the ACNA, Title IV footnote on the renaming of disciplinary bodies effective 1 January 2027

New dioceses and networks are added to the Province by the Provincial Council under a canonical process. At congregational level the canons require only that "every congregation shall be established in accordance with the laws of the State or jurisdiction where situated" and that it carry insurance in amounts its diocese specifies — so the establishment of congregations is a diocesan and civil-law matter rather than a provincial one.

• governing document Constitution of the ACNA, Article II.2 — new dioceses or networks added by the Provincial Council
• governing document Canons of the ACNA, Title I Canon 6 Section 3, Concerning Organization

Title IV governs discipline and was substantially revised into the edition ratified in June 2026 — the revision that had been circulating in draft the previous year is now in force. It provides for presentments heard by panels, appeals to a Provincial Tribunal whose final order concludes the matter, and a process for dissolving an episcopal relationship that may end in "a refusal to dissolve the episcopal relationship or a judgment of dissolution," with terms and conditions attached where dissolution is ordered. One transitional detail is worth recording because it dates the document: from 1 January 2027 the body hearing a bishop's case is renamed the Disciplinary Tribunal for a Bishop, and diocesan courts become Disciplinary Tribunals for a Presbyter or Deacon. The detailed procedure was not read beyond these provisions.

• governing document Canons of the ACNA, Title IV, on presentments, panels, and appeals to the Provincial Tribunal (ratified 25 June 2026)
• governing document Canons of the ACNA, Title IV footnote on the renaming of disciplinary bodies effective 1 January 2027

At provincial level the question is about dioceses: "New dioceses or networks (whether regional or affinity-based) may be added to the Province by the Provincial Council, pursuant to the process outlined by canon." The founding constitution lists the bodies that constituted the province in 2009 — among them the Anglican Network in Canada, the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, Forward in Faith North America, missionary convocations of Kenya, Uganda and the Southern Cone, and the Reformed Episcopal Church — which is a useful reminder that this province was assembled from existing jurisdictions rather than built outward from congregations. How an individual congregation is received is a diocesan matter and was not surveyed.

• governing document Constitution of the ACNA, Article II.1-2, membership of the Province

At the level the constitution addresses, departure is unconditional. Article II.3: "Member dioceses (or groups of dioceses organized into distinct jurisdictions) are free to withdraw from the Province by action of their own governing bodies at any time." No vote threshold, no notice period, no consultation, no payment, no approval — and no time limit. Set beside the other departure provisions on this site, it is the least encumbered by a wide margin: the Global Methodist Church asks ninety days' discernment and a simple majority; the ELCA asks two supermajorities and four months; the Episcopal Church provides nothing and litigated for two decades. Here a diocese simply resolves to go. The limit on this entry must be stated. Article II.3 grants the right to *dioceses*, not to congregations, and this site's unit is the congregation. A congregation's departure is governed by its diocese, and the canons devolve those norms. So the value records the province's own settled position — nothing is owed on the way out — while the congregational procedure varies by diocese and was not surveyed.

• governing document Constitution of the ACNA, Article II.3 — member dioceses free to withdraw by action of their own governing bodies at any time

Everything material. Property and assets are the congregation's outright under Article XII, so a departure transfers nothing. Clergy standing is held at diocesan level and would not travel with the congregation.

• governing document Constitution of the Anglican Church in North America, Article XII

Expulsion is possible but deliberately hard. Under Article XIV a member diocese or network may be removed from membership, after due warning from the Executive Committee, only if two-thirds of Provincial Council members present and voting agree *and* at least a majority in two of the three orders — bishops, clergy and laity — concur. The double requirement means a supermajority carried by one order alone cannot expel. As with departure, the constitution operates on dioceses rather than congregations, and removal carries no property consequence: Article XII leaves ownership where it lies.

• governing document Constitution of the ACNA, Article XIV, Removal from Membership
• governing document Constitution of the ACNA, Article XII