The Rev. Calvin Robinson, the provocative social-media figure, has been licensed as a minister for one year by Bishop Ray Sutton of the Reformed Episcopal Church. Sutton granted the license on May 5.
Robinson was removed from public ministry by the Anglican Catholic Church earlier this year after he did a parody of a salute by Elon Musk that opponents of both men compared to a Nazi salute. Robinson’s parish, St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, voted to leave the Anglican Catholic Church on May 4.
Robinson is eager to celebrate the sacraments again. “It’s been a long over-three-months,” he said in a public video. “There’s been plenty of attacks, but this is how the enemy works.” He apologized for his previous behavior.
His license was revoked by Archbishop Mark Haverland of the Anglican Catholic Church in January, but Robinson did not leave the ACC until May. Robinson said he was removed from the Anglican Catholic Church because of “snobby elitism.”
“I received a license from the denomination, the jurisdiction which the church has entered. This is temporary episcopal oversight, so they’ve got time to think about where they want to be long term,” he said. “I was called to St. Paul’s and Grand Rapids, but I was not called to the Anglican Catholic Church. Now we operate as a church plant.”
He added: “The church happens to now be in communion with 85 million Anglicans around the world, which is a blessing, and I happen to be re-licensed now in the church I began my ministry in.”
The Reformed Episcopal Church is in communion with the Free Church of England, in which Robinson was ordained as a deacon. Robinson’s presbyteral ordination came from the Nordic Catholic Church, which is part of the Union of Scranton and is not in communion with the ACNA.
The Nordic Catholic Church had ordained him to the diaconate again, as it does not accept the Free Church of England’s orders as valid. Robinson did not name the Reformed Episcopal Church in his video, or Bishop Sutton. Robinson is no stranger to the REC. He was a guest speaker at the Anglican Way Institute’s conference hosted by Holy Communion Church, Dallas, the cathedral of the REC, in 2023, when he was still a deacon of the Free Church of England.
In a public statement, Archbishop Steve Wood distanced the ACNA from Robinson.
“I am concerned to have the Anglican Church of North America affiliated with a leader whose public comments and persona consistently fail to exhibit the love and grace of Jesus Christ,” Wood said. “I have concerns about Rev. Robinson’s ability to uphold the full commitments of our Anglican tradition, and his ability to model the Christ-like virtues of peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, and love. I know all of our permanent licensed clergy abide by [these] in the daily exercise of their priestly duties. I do not personally believe the Rev. Robinson is a good representative of the Anglican Church in North America.”
Wood’s statement added: “Bishop Sutton agreed to provide personal oversight of the Church during this interim season and has emphasized that Rev. Robinson has not been admitted as a member of the REC or the ACNA.”
“What I can tell you is that Calvin was originally ordained by the REC in England,” Bishop Sutton told TLC. “The parish where he has been the rector is now independent. It is a traditional 1928 BCP congregation. The church is not far from an REC parish in my diocese. As they have gotten to know my priest and our congregation, they have asked for my temporary pastoral care and oversight. They are not members of the REC in this arrangement. I have licensed their rector, Calvin, to continue to serve a parish that wants him to continue to be their pastor.
“With a licensure arrangement by a bishop of a priest in another jurisdiction, he is not a member of the REC. It is permission for him to serve Word and Sacrament in a congregation under my temporary care, yet not in my jurisdiction. This arrangement, where neither the parish nor priest are members of the REC, does not necessarily involve full agreement with the REC/ACNA on all matters theological and ecclesiastical, nor endorsement of Fr. Calvin’s social and political views.
“In the event that Calvin would decide to return to the REC, our canons require a clergyman from a jurisdiction not communion with us to be examined to determine his full compliance with our standards. Until such time, on an interim basis I have extended whatever pastoral care and direction to a church and a clergyman in need that I might be able to provide with the Lord’s help.”
“Robinson has stated that on May 5 he resigned from the ACC, and then received a license from the REC, a jurisdiction which is not in communion with the ACC,” Sarah Wagner Wassen, an independent canon lawyer in the ACC, told TLC. “Therefore, Robinson has automatically excommunicated himself from the ACC and is therefore deposed from ministry in the ACC.”
The Reformed Episcopal Church was founded in 1873 by George David Cummins, assistant bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Kentucky, due in large part to his concern over the increased influence of Anglo-Catholicism within the Episcopal Church.
The REC says in its canons that “Nothing calculated to teach that in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, the elements of the bread and wine are changed into the natural Flesh and Blood of Christ, shall ever be allowed in the worship or teaching of this Church. Nor shall any practice that teaches or promotes doctrines or practices specifically prohibited by the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion be permitted in this Church.”
Robinson is an Anglo-Catholic. “I celebrated a Traditional Latin Mass in preparation for tomorrow, when I celebrate my first public Mass in over three months,” Robinson wrote on X.com on May 10. He invited the public to attend St. Paul’s on May 17. “It will be a traditional English Mass—the Tridentine, but in English,” he said.
The REC and its four dioceses helped found the ACNA in 2009. Ray Sutton became bishop coadjutor of the Diocese of Mid-America in 1999, and he took over leadership of the REC in 2016.
St. Paul’s Anglican Church did not respond to a request for comment.
Greta Gaffin is a freelance writer based in Boston. She has a master of theological studies degree from Boston University and a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
