Its founding in the early 1990s can be traced to the protests of members of the Episcopal Church who were concerned that their church had become massively influenced by secular humanism brought about through the adoption of theological liberalism. At first, these clergy and laymen sought to change the direction of their church by working from within it, to which end they formed a voluntary association, the Episcopal Synod of America.
When they later concluded that this approach would not succeed, a new missionary diocese was formed by them, still attempting to remain within ECUSA.[dubious – discuss] In 1992, however, the missionary diocese withdrew from ECUSA and formed a separate church, the Episcopal Missionary Church. A. Donald Davies, retired ECUSA Bishop of Dallas and Fort Worth, was named the first Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Missionary Church.[2]
The Episcopal Missionary Church affirms the Holy Scriptures as containing all things necessary to salvation and as the ultimate rule and standard of faith. The church acknowledges the Nicene and Apostles' Creeds and the necessity of the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion. It uses the 1928 American edition of the Book of Common Prayer or the Anglican Missal based upon it, and emphasizes the preservation of apostolic succession. The Episcopal Missionary Church embraces a variety of liturgical styles from low church to high church, evangelical to Anglo-Catholic.
The EMC was in contact with the Anglican Rite Jurisdiction of the Americas. A merger of the EMC and ARJA was agreed upon and in 1994, the ARJA was dissolved and merged with the EMC.[3]
In January 2020, the Episcopal Missionary Church endorsed a concordant of communion with the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), which was signed by Archbishop Foley Beach and EMC Presiding Bishop William Millsaps on 14 September 2020.[4][5]
