Photo by Travis Pratt The Rev. Philip Zampino is pastor of Jesus Our Shepherd Church, formerly Life in Jesus Church.

Zampino, 67, a graduate of the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale University, founded the Life in Jesus Church, which today has just a handful of congregants. He initially formed it under the Episcopal House of Bishops as a religious community, but Zampino left the Episcopal Church U.S.A. -- and took his community with him -- in the early 1990s.

Upset over evolving Episcopal U.S.A. positions on issues such as abortion, women's ordination, homosexuality and biblical interpretation, Zampino later associated his church with the International Communion of the Charismatic Episcopal Church. That relationship was not a good fit in the end, Zampino said recently.

So, when the Anglican Church in North America formed, he became interested in joining the new movement, which has come about largely as a result of schisms in several U.S. dioceses over decisions by the national church leadership, including the ordination of gay and female clergy.

"In the Episcopal church, for 25-30 years, small groups have been breaking off forming splinter associations and going on independently," Zampino said. "And what has finally taken place over the last several years, is that several U.S. dioceses have broken with the Episcopal Church U.S.A."

The Anglican Church in North America unites 700 Anglican parishes in 12 Anglican jurisdictions in North America into a single church, according to an ACNA press release sent out last spring after recognition by the Standing Committee of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion). The jurisdictions coming together include the Anglican Coalition in Canada, the dioceses of Fort Worth, Texas, Pittsburgh, Quincy and San Joaquin, Calif., the Anglican Mission in the Americas, the Anglican Network in Canada, the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, the Reformed Episcopal Church and several missionary initiatives.

By forming the new Anglican Church in North America and seeking recognition from African provinces, the province of the Southern Cone of South America and other Anglican provinces, the ACNA hopes to join the worldwide Anglican Communion, but separately from the Episcopal Church U.S.A.

The Most Rev. Robert William Duncan Jr., former bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh (Episcopal Church U.S.A.), now serves as the first archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America.

In mid-June, at a conference in Texas attended by about 900 church leaders, the ACNA formally adopted a constitution and canons. Zampino attended and when he returned, he said, his small congregation unanimously voted to join the movement, joining an estimated 100,000 church members in the U.S. and Canada.

"My personal reasons for leaving (the Episcopal Church U.S.A.) are basically the same reasons the new province has been formed," Zampino said, listing a tolerance of abortion, acceptance of homosexuality as a normative lifestyle, a failure to take the Bible seriously, and women's ordination as issues with Episcopal Church U.S.A.

"I think you can draw a parallel to Catholic canon law," Zampino said.

One of his sons, a former priest in the Charismatic Episcopal Church in Wisconsin, is now a Roman Catholic and in the process of becoming a Roman Catholic priest.

Along with leading Sunday morning services, Zampino leads monthly healing services -- the next is Tuesday -- including anointing with oil and the laying on of hands. The church is on 131 acres and peaked with about 150 members in the 1980s, Zampino said. In the past, the congregation held retreats on their large property.

"By God's grace, we may be able to do that again," Zampino said.

The church's affiliation with the new province may attract some local Episcopalians dissatisfied with the direction of the Episcopal Church U.S.A., Zampino said. However, parishioners are typically hesitant to leave their local parish, he said, even if they are unhappy with the national church.

Fifteen churches in Maryland, according to the ACNA's website, are part of the Anglican Church in North America, including two Catonsville churches and St. Stephen's Reformed Episcopal Church in Eldersburg.

"I think it's a moral, spiritual, biblical decision," Zampino said of joining the ACNA. "It's a place where I can do the ministry that I felt I was called to do. I don't believe it's time to retire, I believe it's a place God has called me to be."