About Us

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Forward In Faith North America (FIFNA) is a fellowship of Bishops, Clergy, Laity, Parishes, and Religious Orders who embrace the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who uphold the Evangelical Faith and Catholic Order which is the inheritance of the Anglican Way, and who work, pray and give for the reform and renewal of the Church. We are a teaching organism with a mission of teaching the catholic faith as received, practiced and passed on in the Anglican Communion.

Our ancestry goes back to the early 1970’s when the Coalition for the Apostolic Ministry, (CAM) was organized in response to the campaign to allow women’s ordination in the Episcopal Church.

As it became evident that the challenge to the Church’s faith and order involved more than just the ordination question, the Evangelical and Catholic Mission (ECM) was founded in 1976 with the purpose of teaching the Episcopal Church back into the biblical and traditional Anglican Way.

In 1988, the bishops of the ECM called a special Synod, which met in Fort Worth, Texas, in June of 1989. More than 2,000 Episcopalians from all over the country then organized the Episcopal Synod of America (ESA) “to be the Church within The Episcopal Church” by preserving and extending the historic Apostolic Faith during a time of change and confrontation, in opposition to the prevailing revisionism in The Episcopal Church. In 1999, the ESA’s Legislative Body approved a proposal to change our organization’s name to Forward in Faith, North America, (FIFNA) both to emphasize the dynamic character of our mission and to underline our unity of purpose with sister Forward in Faith organizations in the United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, and elsewhere.

While praying and working for revival in the Episcopal Church, we have planned for a number of years for a new province, a structure which would proclaim true doctrine and allow us to go forward with the work God has given each of us. We waited patiently for the right moment, and in 2009, FIFNA became one of the founding organizations to form the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA).

FIFNA’s first Vice President, Rev. William Ilgenfritz, became the first bishop to be consecrated in ACNA. He serves in the non-geographical Missionary Diocese of All Saints (MDAS) being made up mainly of Forward in Faith members.