Our Catholic and Anglican Identity

Christianity in Britain was already established and ancient by the time of the Council of Arles (314 A.D.), to which the Church in Britain sent bishops. The early Christian theologian, Tertullian (185 A.D.) writes that the cross had conquered in areas of Britain where the eagle (the Roman Empire) had not. And St Augustine of Canterbury writes to Pope Gregory, after landing on British soil (597 A.D.), that the British Church already had its own ancient order, government and liturgy. Evidently,Christianity came to Britain very early - most likely during the first century or by the end of the second. This is the beginning of our history.  

This English branch of Christ's Catholic Church gradually came under the government of the Roman see during the Middle Ages but then regained the responsibility of regulating her own affairs during the necessary corrections which occurred in her life at the time of the English Reformation in the 16th century. As the English through trade and settlement moved throughout the world from the 16th century on, the English Church went with them. Thus the Anglican Communion is that branch of Christ's Catholic Church which was established early on in England and now spans the globe, numbering over 80 million souls.  Among the primates (head bishops) of the Communion's provinces, the Archbishop of Canterbury (England) exercises a primacy of honor and oversight. The present Archbishop of Canterbury is the Most Rev'd Rowan Williams.

Following the Revolutionary War and the separation from England, the Anglican Church in the United States organized itself and came to be styled as the Episcopal Church. St Matthias' was founded in 1960 by members of the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas, of which the parish remained a member until early January 2007.  In that month, the parish was received into the Province of the Southern Cone of America, one of the thirty-eight provinces of the Anglican Communion. The Primate of the Southern Cone, the Most Rev'd Gregory Venables, placed St Matthias' within his personal diocese, Argentina. In 2009, with the departure of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth from the Episcopal Church in November 2008 and its entrance into the Province of the Southern Cone, St Matthias' became a parish within the Diocese of Fort Worth.

As a parish of Christ's One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church within its Anglican stream, St Matthias' seeks to proclaim, teach, and live only the historic Faith and Order of Christ's Church: that which has been believed "at all times, in all places, and by all."