Mariners’ Church (Free and Independent) is in the mainstream of traditional and classical Christianity — a biblical, credal, and sacramental church for all people. We worship according to the Use of the Book of Common Prayer of 1662/1928.
Incorporated as The Trustees of Mariners’ Church of Detroit (a self-perpetuating Board) under the Act of Incorporation, No. 142 of 1848, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Michigan, and which Act has neither been amended nor repealed.
Who Are We?
We first choose to be members of the Household of God “of who the whole Family in heaven and earth is named,” and we respond to the graceful calling of the Lakeside Christ who knocks at our heart’s door and invites “whosever will” to sup with Him. Mariners’ Church (Free and Independent) is in the mainstream of traditional and classical Christianity — a biblical, credal, and sacramental church for all people.
Mariners’ Church is not “free and independent” of our one Lord and His mystical body. We are “very members incorporate” in “the blessed company of all faithful people…”
We are an ecumenical Parish using the Anglican Tradition as the form of our worship.
Mariners’ Church of Detroit, part of the One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church and the world-wide Anglican Communion, is governed by an autonomous Board of Trustees, which is enabled by Act number 142 of 1848 of the State Legislature of Michigan.
Mariners’ Church accepts the four basic principles of the unrevised Lambeth Quadrilateral (1888):
- Holy Scriptures contain all things necessary to salvation and remain the rule and standard of faith;
- The ancient Creeds as sufficient summaries of our Faith;
- The two Dominical Sacraments of Holy Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, using the elements ordained by Christ;
- The Apostolic Ministry as established by Christ Himself.
Mariners’ also accepts the Thirty Nine Articles of Religion (Book of Common Prayer, p. 603ff) as an historic source and a vital strength of traditional Anglicanism. We worship according to the use of the Book of Common Prayer of 1662/1928.
A Free and Independent Church is a proper compound noun connoting a unique theological and ecclesial Order and legal structure.