About

Eric Michel Ministries International

Classification: Protestant (Using Anglican Rite)

Orientation: Catholicism

Polity: Episcopal, the IAoC is Congregationalist

Region: As of 2020, Canada

Founder: Most Rev. Eric. M. Gagnon

Origin: 1978/79, Chaplaincy 2010

EMMI at Corporation Canada 2014

Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Members: 194 Total of Class A & B

Official website: https://www.ericmichelministries.org


"We accept any Christian who sincerely, seriously, and prayerfully regards themselves as Christian. If they honestly believe they follow Jesus of Nazareth's teachings as they understand them."


There are many ways of classifying the over 34,000 separate Christian groups in the world that consider themselves to be Christian, from the Amish to The Way.

Eric Michel Ministries International Catholic Chaplaincy is a Christian corporation headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, and Halifax, Nova Scotia. The Church traces its founding to Jesus and the Twelve Apostles and regards the bishops as the literal successors of the Apostles, holding their keys of authority. Eric Michel Ministries International Catholic Chaplaincy is part of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. While it derives its Apostolic Succession from the teaching of the Apostles, we are in communion with the Roman Catholic Church but differ from them theologically in several essential respects.

We are influenced by the Franciscans, the Jesuits (Society of Jesus), Thomas Aquinas, and Cristogenesis. 


Beliefs

Creeds


Sacraments

The Church recognizes the historic seven sacraments: Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Eucharist, Absolution, Extreme Unction, Holy Matrimony, and Holy Orders.

Paterology

Soteriology

The EMMI teaches that we are all immortal, both before and after physical death; and everyone shall "one day reach His Feet, however far they stray." Universal reconciliation is an accepted doctrine of the EMMI, following the words of St. Paul: "Therefore just as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man's act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all." (Romans 5:18)

Ecclesiology

The EMMI teaches that the Holy Bible, the Creeds, and the Traditions of the Church are the means by which Christ's teachings have been handed down to his followers and that they are fundamental, true, and sufficient as a basis for right understanding and right conduct.

The EMMI teaches that all Christian worship is valid, of whatever kind, so long as it is earnest and faithful.

Ministries structure

Episcopal Polity

Constitution and canons

Its constitution and canons govern the EMMI.

Clergy

Its archbishop, Most Revd, currently leads the EMMI. Eric M. Gagnon, and the Symposium (General Assembly).

Laity

EMMI laypersons come from diverse backgrounds and all spiritual paths. Due to the open nature of the Multi-Denominational EMMI Chaplaincy, no layperson is required to accept any of the Church's more "formal" beliefs and is allowed to accept or reject them as they please, as Baptist, Catholic, Evangelist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Pentecostalist, or Christian Unitarian Universalist.

Seminary

Training for the clergy of the EMMI is through Footsteps of Jesus Seminary & Bible Academy, the only seminary of the Church. The seminary offers distance study courses for those seeking holy orders or working for the church.

Liturgy

The Church uses its liturgy, today known as the Anglican Rite.

History

Relations with other denominations

The EMMI seeks to work in amity with all other Christian denominations and is open to inter-communion agreements with other denominations. Open communion is a practice of the EMMI.

Franciscans of the Third Order

Religious Order

The Order of St. Francis Ecumenical is a semi-monastic Franciscan spiritual community. Autocephaly, meaning "property of being self-headed," is the status of a hierarchical Christian church whose head bishop does not report to any higher-ranking bishop. The term is primarily used in Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches. The status has been compared with the churches (provinces) within the Anglican Communion.

Our Ecumenical Order is a group of men and women devoted to following the examples of Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Clare of Assisi in their life and understanding of the Christian gospel: sharing a love for creation and those marginalized. 

An example of Christian ecumenism, the FAICL opens its membership to Christians of many different denominations, including Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Moravians, Anglicans, Methodists, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Reformed Christians. The FAICL understands its charism to include not only ecumenical efforts and the traditional emphases of the Franciscans in general but also to help to develop relationships among the various Christian Denominations. It is open to any Christian who belongs to any church or denomination, or indeed none and is at least 18 years of age.

It was established under Charter # 04062022 of The Order of Franciscans of the Eucharist and is protected by an autocephalous church in the historic apostolic succession.

According to the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia, "Third Orders signify in general lay members of religious orders, i.e. men and women who do not necessarily live in community and yet can claim to wear the habit and participate in the good works of some great order. Any Catholic may join a Third Order but may not at once belong to more than one, nor may he without grave cause leave one for another."

Here's the Code of Canon Law's definition: "Associations whose members share in the spirit of some religious institute while in secular life, lead an apostolic life, and strive for Christian perfection under the higher direction of the same institute are called third orders or some other appropriate name." (Can. 303)

Profession for seculars means they promise to live according to the rules of their orders; it does not consist of taking vows.

Organization

The Organization:


The denomination leader bears the Archbishop at Eric Michel Ministries International (EMMI) in
Latin archiepiscopus. The title, of the archbishop, is the highest of the three traditional clerical
1) orders of bishops,
2) priests (also called presbyters),
3) and deacons 

An archbishop may be granted the title or ordained as chief pastor of a metropolitan. 

At Eric Michel Ministries International, the archbishop is elected and must be ordained bishop. The function is equivalent to a presiding bishop, and our archbishop is elected for life.  He is the organization's chief ecumenical officer and the leader and caretaker for the synods' bishops.
The archbishop chairs the complete general assembly name Symposium and provides for the preparation of agendas for the Symposium, the Church Council and its executive committee (permanent synod), the House of Bishops, and the House of Elders.

The archbishop is in charge of initiating policy, developing strategy, and overseeing the entire organization's administration. The archbishop also serves as a figurehead and speaks on behalf of the whole of Eric Michel Ministries International.

The archbishop, the Most Reverend Eric Gagnon, was elected on May 6, 2011. EMMI is, before anything else,  a Chaplain, and he is the founder of our latest ministry, the Franciscan Chaplaincy in 2020, the EMMI Third Order of Saint Francis (EMMITOSF). 

As a novice in the Third Order of Saint Francis, Eric Gagnon took the vows of poverty, humility, prayer (the rule says may be male or female, married, partnered or single.) and obedience. As a Franciscan who took the vows of poverty, Eric Michel is poor. 

EMMITOSF is an ecumenical order open to any Christian from any church or denomination.
We are ecumenical and multidenominational, serving as all  Baptist, Catholic, Evangelist, Methodist and Pentecostal. 

Archbishop Eric Gagnon took the vows of poverty. He is a mendicant, from Latin mendicants, "begging." A mendicant practices mendicancy and relies chiefly or exclusively on alms to survive. In principle, mendicant religious orders own little property, either individually or collectively, and in many instances, members have taken a vow of poverty so that all their time and energy can be expended on practicing their respective faith, preaching, and serving society. 

Mendicancy in Christianity has its roots in the Bible. In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus is described as granting his apostles a “gift of tongues.” This is later expanded upon in Luke’s Acts of the Apostles, allowing them to be understood by anybody regardless of the language of the person being spoken to.

Early 1st Centuries: New Testament figures such as John the Baptist and Paul of Tarsus were also known for extensively travelling and preaching the Gospel to unreached peoples in the Middle East and Europe, although they often stayed for more extended periods than modern itinerant evangelists.

Mendicant orders are primarily specific Christian religious orders that have adopted a lifestyle of poverty, travelling, and living in urban areas for purposes of preaching, evangelization, and ministry, especially to the poor. At their foundation, these orders rejected the previously established monastic model. This model prescribed living in one stable, isolated community where members worked at a trade and owned property in common, including land, buildings and other wealth. By contrast, the mendicants avoided owning property, did not work at a trade, and embraced a poor, often itinerant lifestyle. They depended for their survival on the goodwill of the people they preached. 

Francis came to this manner of life through a period of personal conversion. The Franciscans spread their devotion to the humanity of Christ far and wide, with the commitment to imitate the Lord. Many of them were priests and men of learning whose contributions were notable in the movement's rapid evolution and contemporary relevance. Notable Franciscans include Anthony of Padua, who inspired the formation of Christian mendicant traditions. 

Characteristics:

The Franciscans and Dominicans put a pastoral strategy suited to the social changes into practice. The emergence of urban centers meant concentrated numbers of the homeless and the sick, which created problems for the parish churches, which found themselves unable to address these issues. Since many people moved from the countryside to the cities, they no longer built their convents in rural districts but rather in urban zones.

In another innovation, the mendicant orders relinquished their principle of stability, a classical principle of ancient monasticism, opting for a different approach. Unlike the Benedictine monks, the mendicants were not permanently attached to any particular convent or abbot. Because the orders' primary aim was evangelizing the masses, the church granted them freedom from the jurisdiction of the bishops, and they travelled about to convert or reinforce faith. The freedom of mendicancy allowed Franciscans and Dominicans mobility. Since they were not tied to monasteries or territorial parishes, they could take the gospel into the streets, preach, hear confessions and minister to people wherever they were. Friars Minor and Preachers travelled with missionary zeal from one place to another.

Consequently, they organized themselves differently in comparison with the majority of monastic orders. Instead of the traditional autonomy that every monastery enjoyed, they gave greater importance to the order, as such to the Superior General and to the structure of the order Provinces. Their flexibility enabled them to send out the most suitable friars on specific missions, and the mendicant orders reached North Africa, the Middle East and Northern Europe.

As students and professors, Friars Minor and Friars Preacher, Franciscans and Dominicans, entered the leading universities of the time, set up study centers, produced texts of great value, were protagonists of scholastic theology in its best period, and had a significant effect on the development of thought. The great thinkers, St Thomas Aquinas and St Bonaventure, were mendicants.

Friaries were established in all the great cities of Western Europe, and Dominicans and Franciscans held theological chairs in the universities. Later in the 13th century, the mendicant orders of Carmelites, Augustinian Hermits, and Servites joined them.

They attracted significant patronage, as much from townsfolk as aristocrats. Their operation focus rapidly centred on towns where population growth historically outstripped the provision of rural parishes. Most medieval towns in Western Europe of any size came to possess houses of one or more of the major orders of friars. Some of their churches came to be built on a grand scale with large spaces devoted to preaching, something of a specialty among the mendicant orders. 

Franciscans who in modern times include:



FAICL, a  Third Order of St. Francis (Eric Michel Ministries International)


Eric Michel Ministries International, a Catholic Community Chaplaincy, is a mendicant organization registered as a not-for-profit corporation in Canada. EMMI founded an association of churches and para-churches in 2017 and operates under the name of the Interdenominational Assembly of Churches. It comprises Clerics regular priests (clerics) who are members of a religious order under a rule of life (regular). Clerics regularly differ from canons in that they devote themselves more to pastoral care,  place an obligation to the praying of the Liturgy of the Hours in common, and have fewer observances in their rule of life.


Asking for money from a mendicant doesn't sound logical, but for a corporate partner needing help from the association under certain conditions, please see The Distribution Page. 

Justificatio sola fide (or simply sola fide), meaning justification by faith alone, is a soteriological doctrine in Christian theology commonly held to distinguish the Lutheran and Reformed traditions of Protestantism, among others, from the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Assyrian and Anabaptist churches. The doctrine asserts that it is based on faith alone that believers are made right of sin (such as their transgressions of divine law) and not based on what Paul the Apostle calls "works of the law," which sola fide proponents interpret as including not only moral, legal or ceremonial requirements but any good works or "works of charity." 

The "works of charity"

The work of charity at Eric Michel Ministries International is our CHAPLAINCY. We are divided into two groups: Faith and Work.

Chaplains to First Responders Emergency Support

1st Sector of Activity

Economic Activity Code (CAE) 9811 Activity Religious Organizations

Details: Ministry of Chaplaincy, Ministry of Sacraments and Religious Services, Ministry of Theology Research and Teaching, New Hope Ministry (Sunday Worship Service), Ministry of Lay Volunteers

1st sector of activity

Economic activity code 9811 Religious organizations.

Economic Activity Code 8411 International organizations and other extraterritorial organizations

2nd sector of activity

Economic Activity Code 8691 Associations and organizations promoting health care and public safety

Economic activity code 8699 Other associations and organizations in the fields of health and social services

Aumôniers aux premiers intervenants soutien d'urgence

1er secteur d'activité

Code d'activité économique (CAE) 9811 Activité Organisations religieuses

Précisions: Ministère de l"aumônerie, Ministère des Sacrements et services religieux, Ministère de la recherche théologie et enseignement, Ministère Nouvelle Espoir (Service du Dimanche-Worship), Ministère des bénévoles laïque


Code d'activité économique 9811 Organisations religieuses

Code d'activité économique 8411 Organismes internationaux et autres organismes extraterritoriaux


2e secteur d'activité

Code d'activité économique 8691 Associations et organismes de promotion des soins de santé et de sécurité publique

Code d'activité économique 8699 Autres associations et organismes des domaines de la santé et des services sociaux

FAITH

Economic activity code (CAE) 9811 Activity Religious organizations

Details: 

WORK

Economic Activity Code 8691 Associations and organizations promoting health care and public safety

Economic activity code 8699 Other associations and organizations in the fields of health and social services

Details: Ministry of Chaplains (Community Chaplains)


Hate is not Holy 

Use of the Intersex-Inclusive Pride flag is permitted. However, Valentino Vecchietti, the creator of the Intersex-Inclusive Pride flag, asks to be credited/acknowledged in association with its use.