TheAnglican Episcopal Church (AEC) was aContinuing Anglican church consisting of parishes inArizona,Alaska, andFlorida served by a presiding bishop and several other clergy. The AEC was founded at St. George's Anglican Church inVentura, California.
The church described its faith as being based on the 1928Book of Common Prayer, theKing James Version of theBible,[1]and theThirty-nine Articles of Religion. Now the AEC functions as a non-geographical Diocese of theUnited Episcopal Church of North America.
The Anglican Episcopal Church's first bishop was Reginald Hammond (1918 to 2004). Hammond was consecrated for the Anglican Episcopal Church on 20 April 2000 byRobert J. Godfrey, a former presiding bishop of theAnglican Orthodox Church.[2] The co-consecrators were:Richard Boyce of theAnglican Province of America[3] and Scott McLaughlin, Hesbon Njera, and Thomas Shank, all of theOrthodox Anglican Church. Following Hammond's death on 5 May 2004, the church was reduced from three parishes to the one parish in Ventura which then voted to ask for the episcopal oversight of two bishops of the Anglican Diocese of the Good Shepherd: Melvin Pickering and George Connor.
In 2006, St. George's withdrew from its association with the Diocese of the Good Shepherd along with several other parishes. Delegates to an October 2006 General Convention which had been called for the purpose of re-establishing the Anglican Episcopal Church elected Conner to be its presiding bishop. David Pressey of St. George's parish was elected by the AEC Convention of 2008 to be a suffragan bishop. He was consecrated on 22 November 2008. In September 2014, St. George's withdrew from membership in the AEC and is currently an independent parish.
In 2008, the Anglican Episcopal Church entered into a close working association with theDiocese of the Great Lakes;[4] both of these churches have since joined theUnited Episcopal Church of North America as dioceses of the UECNA.
This Anglican Episcopal Church is not to be confused with theAnglican Episcopal Church of North America founded in 1972 by Bishop Walter Hollis Adams (1907 to 1991), with theAnglican Episcopal Church, Celtic Rite which was founded in 1993 by Bishop Robert Harold Hawn (1928 to 1999),[5] with theAnglican Episcopal Church International which was founded by Bishop Norman S. Dutton in 2008, or with theAnglican Episcopal Church of Europe which was founded more recently.
