Two Southern California Episcopal parishes announced Tuesday that they had broken with the national church over the issue of homosexuality, placing themselves under the jurisdiction of a conservative Anglican bishop from Africa.
The announcement by All Saints Church in Long Beach and St. James Church in Newport Beach escalated a confrontation in the Episcopal Church over the role of gay clergy and the interpretation of Scripture.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday August 19, 2004 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 2 inches; 94 words Type of Material: Correction
Episcopal Church -- An article in Wednesday's California section about two churches severing ties with the national Episcopal Church over the issue of homosexuality said the churches were breaking with the worldwide Anglican Communion. As the article stated elsewhere, the two churches broke only from the Episcopal Church, which is the U.S. branch of the Anglican Communion. The article also said the churches were the first two parishes in the Los Angeles Episcopal Diocese to leave the denomination. Four parishes broke with the diocese in the 1970s, although not over the issue of homosexuality.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday August 20, 2004 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 41 words Type of Material: Correction
Episcopal churches -- Articles in the California section Wednesday and Thursday about two Episcopal parishes breaking with the national Episcopal Church and placing themselves under the jurisdiction of a conservative Anglican bishop in Uganda misspelled Bishop Evans Kisekka's surname as Koseka.
The move marked the first time any of the 147 parishes in the six-county Los Angeles Episcopal Diocese had made good on threats to pull out of the 2.3-million-member national Episcopal Church. Conservative leaders in Washington and South Carolina said Tuesday that the Southern California developments had broad implications.
"It's only the beginning," said the Rev. Canon Kendall Harmon, a theologian in the Diocese of South Carolina who has frequently defended the cause of "biblically orthodox" Episcopalians.
In Washington, Cynthia Brust of the conservative American Anglican Council estimated that 45 to 50 and perhaps as many as 100 Episcopal parishes nationally had left the church in one way or the other. There are 7,305 parishes in the United States.
The Episcopal Church is the U.S. member of the worldwide Anglican Communion, which claims 77 million members. Debates over homosexuality have increasingly split the communion, with many churches in the United States and Western Europe accepting gay clergy and same-sex weddings, while churches in Asia and Africa uphold the authority of biblical verses that condemn homosexual relations.
The latest move could lead to a legal battle, including a dispute over who owns the church buildings and property -- the parishes themselves or the diocese.
The move by the two churches caught Los Angeles Episcopal Bishop J. Jon Bruno by surprise, he said. Bruno said Tuesday that he had served notice in a letter to the African bishop, the Rt. Rev. Evans Koseka of the Diocese of Luweero in Uganda, that he had violated church law by intervening in the affairs of the Los Angeles Diocese. Bruno also said he was not ceding his authority over the two parishes.
"I have informed the presiding bishop [of the U.S. Episcopal Church] and have taken and sought counsel" from church lawyers, Bruno said in an interview. In the letter to Koseka, "I am advising him that I'm not releasing these parishes," Bruno said.
