St. Andrew’s is an Anglican Church. The word “Anglican” means “English,” but it is an historical, not an ethnic term. The first Anglicans, in fact, were Celts and Roman soldiers living in the British Islands during the Roman Empire. Later, when Angles and Saxons migrated to Britain, the work of various missionaries was united as the “Ecclesia Anglicana” or “English Church.”

By the end of the Middle Ages, it was clear that the Christian Church needed reforming, and in the 16th century this was accomplished in the Church of

England by a return to the Biblical principles of the ancient Church. It was this ancient and reformed faith that Anglican missionaries brought to America, and that St. Andrew’s believes and practices today.

The 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 of the Anglican Way

This simple outline of the Anglican Faith was offered by our senior pastors at the time of the Reformation.

In the providence and grace of the Blessed Trinity, and under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever, the Church is based on ONE canon of Holy Scripture, in TWO Testaments that reveal an identical truth of the glory and mercy of God. The unity of God’s Word Written is not to be divided by privatized judgment, but to be proclaimed as the apostolic and primitive Church understood the Holy Scriptures. That understanding is recorded in THREE ancient and ecumenical Creeds (Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian) and in the teaching of the first FOUR General Councils (at Nicea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon). Finally, the general life of the Church in every era is to be guided by the life of the undivided Christian Church of the first FIVE centuries: in worship, discipline, ministry, and mission.

Thus, the Anglican Way is a LIFE in Christ under God the Father, with the Holy Ghost, and in unity with the Church of the Apostles.