St. Edmund's Anglican Church
| St. Edmund's Anglican Church | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Location | Elm Grove, Wisconsin |
| Country | United States |
| Denomination | Convocation of Anglicans in North America |
| History | |
| Dedication | Edmund the Martyr |
| Architecture | |
| Architect(s) | William P. Wenzler |
| Style | Mid-century Modern |
| Completed | 1957 |
St. Edmund's Anglican Church was a parish of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America in Elm Grove, Wisconsin.
Formerly known as St. Edmund's Episcopal Church, the congregation became in 2008 the first in Wisconsin to withdraw from the Episcopal Church to join the Anglican realignment, a conservative movement of Anglicans in the United States and Canada formed primarily in opposition to the Episcopal Church's support for the ordination of non-celibate gay people.
St. Edmund's was founded 1947 by a small group of Christian laity and clergy meeting in temporary facilities in the village of Elm Grove, Waukesha County, Wisconsin. Within a decade the group had raised sufficient funds to construct their own building on land donated to the congregation by members of their community on Watertown Plank Road in the village. In 1962, St. Edmund's voted to affiliate with the Episcopal Church in the United States of America and became part of the ECUSA Diocese of Milwaukee.
Bishop Donald Hallock granted St. Edmund's the charter of an earlier defunct parish in his diocese dedicated to St. Edmond (Edmund), King of East Anglia. The free grant of the charter provided the 15-year-old parish with honorific roots to Christian ministry in Milwaukee dating to 1874 and Anglican historical connections stretching back almost 1,100 years.
By 1976, the church was a congregation with more than 400 members. In 1976 the parish vestry chose Wayne Carr Olmstead to serve as rector. Olmstead remained in the position for the next 30 years, serving both the parishioners of St. Edmund's and young men studying for the ministry from Nashotah House Seminary. But his tenure proved controversial because of his high-church style and traditionalist theological approach, which limited the role of girls and women in church services. A large number of congregants left the parish in the years following Olmstead's appointment, including a substantial number of major donors, weakening its financial base. What remained was a smaller and more conservative group of worshippers.
...
Wikipedia