African Orthodox Church
The African Orthodox Church is a primarily African-American denomination in the Anglican tradition, founded in the United States in 1919. It has approximately 15 parishes and 5,000 members.
The AOC is known for having beatified the late jazz saxophonist John Coltrane as a saint. The St. John Will-I-Am Coltrane Church in San Francisco was founded in 1971.
Beliefs
The AOC holds to the historic three-fold ministry of bishops, priests, and deacons, and lays strong emphasis on apostolic succession. The church celebrates the seven sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church. Its worship is liturgical, blending elements of Eastern and Western rites. The Nicene, Apostles', and Athanasian creeds are affirmed.[1]
History
The African Orthodox Church (AOC) was founded in the belief that black Episcopalians should have a denomination of their own. Episcopal rector George Alexander McGuire was consecrated a bishop on September 28th, 1921, in Chicago, Illinois, by Archbishop Joseph Rene Vilatte, assisted by Bishop Carl A. Nybladh who had been consecrated by Vilatte. This placed Bishop McGuire in apostolic succession, which was something he had greatly desired. [2]
The new denomination was originally called the Independent Episcopal Church, but at its first Conclave, or House of Bishops, meeting on September 10, 1924, the denomination was formally organized as the African Orthodox Church. Bishop McGuire was unanimously elected Archbishop and enthroned with the title of "Archbishop Alexander".
McGuire served for several years as Chaplain of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA), founded and led by Marcus Garvey. When Garvey decided in 1924 to relocate UNIA headquarters to the West Indies, McGuire left the UNIA and began to devote himself to the development and extension of his church. Soon Endick Theological Seminary was founded, as well as an order of deaconesses, and the Negro Churchman magazine began publication, with McGuire as its editor.
The African Orthodox church originally attracted mostly Anglican West Indian immigrants. It spread to the South in 1925 when McGuire started a parish in West Palm Beach, Florida. Two years later he consecrated an African as Metropolitan William Daniel Alexander of South Africa and central and southern Africa. At this time McGuire was elected as Patriarch with the title of Alexander I. The church then spread to Uganda where it grew to about 10,000. Its greatest strength, however, was in New York City where on Nov 8, 1931, McGuire dedicated Holy Cross Pro-Cathedral, a remodeled house purchased by McGuire from funds obtained by mortgaging his own home.
McGuire died on November 10 1934. He was survived by his wife, Ada Robert McGuire, a native of Antigua, and a daughter. At the time of his death the church had about 30,000 members, about fifty clergy, and thirty churches located in the United States, Africa, Cuba, Antigua and Venezuela.
References
Bibliography
Arthur C. Thompson's The History of the African Orthodox Church (1956), Byron Rushing's A Note on the Origin of the African Orthodox Church (JNH, Jan. 1972), and Gavin White's Patriarch McGuire and the Episcopal Church
Sources
- NetMinistries - African Orthodox Church, Inc.
- St. John Will-I-Am Coltrane Church, San Francisco
- The Origin of Orthodoxy in East Africa - by His Eminence Metropolitan Makarios (Tillyrides) of Zimbabwe
- Orthodox mission in Tropical Africa - by Stephen Hayes, published in Missionalia, the journal of the Southern African Missiological Society