INTERFERENCE IN CAYMAN ISLANDS AFFAIRS BY THE BISHOP OF JAMAICA

 

A recent statement by the Bishop of Jamaica purporting to speak for the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of the Cayman Islands on the intervention in North America by the Nigerian Primate, The Most Reverend Peter Akinola, is the latest in a number of his statements over the past years that constitute serious interference in Cayman Islands ecclesiastical affairs.

 

Any and all statements emanating from Church House, Jamaica, that purport to be in the name of “The Diocese of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands”, whose legality has been in question since the Diocese of Jamaica resolved in their local Synod to change their name, are made without the permission or authority of the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of these Cayman Islands, an Overseas Territory of the British Crown.

 

As Rector of the Church of England in the Cayman Islands I am glad to affirm my belief that the intervention of the Most Reverend Peter Akinola can no more be thought to be interference in the structures of the Church than the intervention, many years ago, of St. Athanasius, whose actions at the time preserved the world-wide Church from the contagious heresy of Arianism.

 

I do not consider that a diocesan bishop should publish statements using tendentious language about the actions of bishops of other Provinces, and certainly if they do not impinge directly upon their own diocesan concerns. Is Bishop Reid the authorised spokesman for The Episcopal Church or the Archbishop of Canterbury?

 

We join our prayers to those of those of faithful Anglicans throughout the world that by the Providential ordering of The Holy Trinity, the Church of our day may be preserved from all neglect and heresy, and we ask for prayers for the Archbishop of Nigeria and all faithful Bishops and Priests that they may be divinely strengthened in love, discernment, wisdom and courage.

 

 

(The Reverend) Nicholas Sykes

Rector

Clerk in Holy Orders, Cayman Islands