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RECIFE: Diocese suspended by Liberal Brazilian Primate
December 1, 2004
The Diocese of Recife continues to experience an extreme case of harassment of an orthodox bishop by a liberal Province.
Just two days before it was scheduled to meet (for the Provincial Convention, a date set a year ago), the Primate of the Episcopal Anglican Church of Brazil, bishop Orlando Oliveira sent a letter to the diocesan bishop Robinson Cavalcanti; communicating a “Decree” “suspending” Recife Diocese during the next Convention). Everything has been prepared for the convention: decoration, papers, food, tickets, liturgy, and the delegates from the several parishes, missions and mission stations are already arriving. The weak finances of the Diocese were almost completed spent in the preparation for the Convention.
This “Decree” has no precedent, and has no Constitutional or Canonical support. In the last three months the House has created, from the top, a “Special Episcopal Oversight” for a small group of clergy (considered by the retired bishop Edmund Knox Sherril as “violent, with no justification and against the spirit and practice that is supposed to characterize a Province of the Anglican Communion)”, suspending all provincial money for the diocese, and opening a charge in order to put evangelical bishop Robinson Cavalcanti on trial for “insubmission”. “The Convocation of our Convention was made by the diocesan plenary, and only the plenary can decide how to react to this authoritarian decision. There is sadness and revolt among the people”, said the Ven. Revd. Mauricio Coelho, Chairman of the Standing Committee.
Under severe discrimination and persecution from the liberal provincial leadership, the Diocese of Recife is asking for international support and “Special Primatial” (Provincial) Adequate Oversight with jurisdiction from another orthodox Province.
Rev Estevao Menezes
General Secretary
Diocese of Recife
