User:Garnet Moss/St Paul's Anglican Church, Portland

St. Paul's Anglican Church (also St. Paul's or Olde St. Paul's) is an Anglican church located in Portland, Maine, United States. It is a Continuing Anglican parish, and worships using the 1928 edition Book of Common Prayer as promulgated by the Episcopal Church of the United States, supplemented by the 1979 edition and the Anglican Missal. The congregation resides at St. Paul's Church and Rectory. It is a member parish of the Diocese of the Eastern United States in the Anglican Church in America.

History
St. Paul's was founded in 1763 as an Anglican mission church by direction of the Bishop of London. Its initial church building was destroyed in the Burning of Falmouth during the American Revolutionary War. The congregation has resided in its current location since 1867. St. Paul's claims to be the oldest extant church in Portland, and the first non-Puritan church established in the city. Once a member of the Episcopal Church of the United States, St. Paul's ultimately ruptured with the body over the adoption of the Book of Common Prayer (1979) and the attendant ecclesiastical reforms, and so joined the burgeoning Continuing Anglican movement. It continues to use the 1928 edition of the Episcopal Church's Book of Common Prayer and declines to ordain women.