16
November 1963- 2016
James
Parker Dees, a Bishop of Vision and Courage –
(1915-1990) Few would have suspected a member of the New York Opera Company
would become a bishop who would wage war against a corrupt and arrogant branch
of the Church of England[1]
– the Episcopal Church. But Bishop James Parker Dees was just such a fellow.
Bishop Dees was ordained in 1949 following his graduation from Virginia
Theological Seminary. After serving charges in Beaufort and Statesville (to
include serving as rector of an all-black church in Statesville), Rev Dees
became disillusioned with the unbiblical teachings of the Episcopal Church. He
strongly objected to the teaching of men such as Bishop Pike who was in obvious
disregard of the Thirty Nine Articles of Religion and the Holy Bible itself.
Realizing Pike’s actions were egregious enough to warrant his being brought up
on charges before the Church Court, he filed charges under the Church Canons.
Though the charges were unquestionably factual, the Church took no measures
against Pike. Other issues involving infidelity to Holy Writ, a lowered view of
the marriage covenant and intensifying liberal tendencies drove Dees to separate
from ECUSA in 1963 and form the Anglican Orthodox Church.
Clergy who assured Dees of their support and
loyalty deserted him. He was consecrated a bishop by Bishop Wasyl Sawyna of the Holy Ukrainian Autocephalic Orthodox Church
of North and South America,
assisted by Bishop Orlando Jacques Woodward of Old Catholic succession, on 15
March 1964.
Clergymen from the local Episcopal churches
demonstrated, day and night, on the sidewalk in front of his home with placards
and loudspeakers. Dees, never wavered in his conviction and determination to preserve
the faith of the Reformation. He insisted on strict conformity to the Received
Text versions of the Holy Bible, the Thirty Nine Articles of Religion and
traditional Book of Common Prayer as the arbiter of all truth and doctrine.
Expending much of his personal and family savings to sustain the church, Bishop
Dees was successful in maintaining a Remnant of the true Gospel among the
purveyors of heresy and apostasy. The church grew, under his wise oversight, to
include more than twenty foreign national churches. Dees founded the Orthodox
Anglican Church to act as an ecclesiastical umbrella for these foreign
churches, but still remaining an organ the Anglican Orthodox Church. He never
slumbered nor rested in his zeal to serve God and to build His Church.
Bishop Dees underwent non-life-threatening
surgery in December of 1990, but died a few days later as a result of
complications of pneumonia. He died on Christmas Day, five days short of his
seventy fifth birthday.
Like the Reformers of old, Bishop Dees
discovered the modern church had become corrupt and heretical. It needed
reforming, and Bishop James Parker Dees was that Reformer of our Modern times.
We shall ever be thankful to God for such men!
[1]
Now all branches still
associated with the Canterbury Communion are corrupt, but it was no so in
1963. But, as they say, a fish rots from the head!
