Canadian Mennonite Brethren leaders needed to clear up confusion about whether their denomination was involved in a same-sex wedding.

Responding to numerous inquiries, the leaders, Willy Reimer and Brian Cooper, wrote a statement in January pointing out that the ceremony’s participants were not MB but from Mennonite Church Canada. Reimer is executive director of the Canadian Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches. Cooper is chair of the Board of Faith and Life.

The Dec. 31 wedding of Craig Friesen and Matt Wiens was held at Osler (Sask.) Mennonite Church. Anita Retzlaff and Patrick Preheim, co-pastors of Nutana Park Mennonite Church in Saskatoon, where the couple attend, officiated. Reimer and Cooper wrote that the wedding made national headlines and that they received “numerous inquiries wondering why one of our churches had participated.” They clarified that the Nutana Park congregation is not MB and that the Canadian MB conference “is committed to our confessional position . . . that marriage is a covenant relationship intended to unite a man and a woman for life.”