Apr 06, 2007  |  By: ELIZABETH PERRY  | COMMENTS     

The rector and nine vestry members of one of the largest Episcopal congregations in Colorado voted to break away from their diocese and join a conservative branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion last week.

The tension between Grace Church & St. Stephens Parish and the Colorado dioceses mirrors what is happening on the national and international stage as the Episcopal Church USA and conservative factions of the worldwide Anglican Communion battle over issues of theology, sexuality, property rights and money.

The possibility of a split between progressive and conservative factions of the Anglican Communion has experts speculating about how money and property rights will be divided up in what could be one of the largest, messiest “divorces” in the history of religion in the United States.

“With respect to the Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church, what is at stake is the loss of money to churches previously supported by the Anglican Communion,” said Wick Stephens, Chancellor of the Anglican Communion Network, a conservative organization that rejects the Episcopal Church’s stand on homosexuality and its support for the ordination of gay clergy.

The United States is one of 38 independent, self-governing provinces in the worldwide Anglican Communion. At 2.3 million members, Episcopalians comprise a small percentage of the Anglican Communion’s 77 million members worldwide, yet generate most of the funding for the communion, according to Stephens.

“A substantial part of the Anglican Communion’s functioning is supported by the Episcopal Church,” Stephens said. “That could be lost.”

Individual congregations in Virginia and Colorado are just two of more than 30 churches in the U.S. that are locked in a battle with their respective dioceses and the Episcopal Church over church teachings about gay issues.

Rev. Donald Armstrong, rector of Grace & St. Stephen’s Church in Colorado Springs and all but two members of the church’s governing board voted to secede from the Episcopal Church USA March 26 and align themselves with CANA, the Convocation of Anglicans in North America.

That same day, Armstrong defied Colorado Bishop Robert O’Neill and reclaimed leadership of the 2,000-member church. Armstrong was suspended from his duties by the bishop and barred from church property in January pending the outcome of a year-long diocesan investigation into financial wrongdoing by the rector.

According to wire reports, Armstrong allegedly stole or mishandled “hundreds of thousands of dollars” over a decade and failed to report some $548,000 in income and benefits to the IRS. In a press statement Armstrong denied the accusations and said he would give his side of the story during an April 14 news conference about his congregation’s split.

“I fear that Bishop O’Neill’s monomaniacal pursuit of the politics of personal destruction may ultimately result in the financial demise of the Diocese of Colorado and the loss of his episcopacy,” Armstrong said.

A parish-wide vote is coming up May 5 in which members of Armstrong’s former flock will officially choose whether to follow their former rector to CANA.

In Virginia, a similar battle between the Falls Church and Truro Churches and the Episcopal Diocese remains locked in litigation over property rights, which Stephens estimated could take as long as five years to a decade to resolve. Members of both churches voted last year to align with CANA.

“We believe there is a win-win solution for those who don’t want to follow the [Episcopal Church] USA,” he said. “To have national mediation to resolve property issues on a fair and equitable basis so no one has to waste time on the cost of litigation. The cost is outrageous in terms of people’s emotional lives.”

Canon Jim Naughton with the Episcopal Diocese of D.C. said if churches could break away from the Episcopal Church USA and still keep their properties they would have done it by now. He said laws in most states are written in favor of the Episcopal Church as a hierarchical church, meaning Episcopal bishops are able to make their own decisions about how church property is owned and used.

“The fact [the breakaway churches] haven’t done it means they are aware that they will probably lose in court,” he said. “There are states where the laws are ambiguous or in their favor, but not enough to constitute a critical mass.”

Naughton said he thinks most courts will accept the argument that Episcopal Dioceses such as Virginia and Colorado own the properties in trust for the larger church. Stephens disagreed, saying the congregations leaving the Episcopal Church are still loyal to the worldwide Anglican Communion, hence holding property in trust for it.

“Many who would not be following the Episcopal ...