ENS: Virginia bishop vows to care for remaining Episcopalians, assert rights to departing congregations' property
Presiding Bishop says 'quick fix' of departing is not ultimate solution
By Mary Frances Schjonberg
Sunday, December 17, 2006

Episcopal News Service] Bishop Peter Lee of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia said December 17 that he was saddened by the fact that, as of that afternoon, Nigerian and Ugandan congregations were "occupying Episcopal churches."

Lee's statement came as eight of Virginia's 195 congregations announced that their members had voted to sever ties with the Episcopal Church and affiliate with the Anglican Church of Uganda or the Anglican Church of Nigeria by way of the Anglican District of Virginia, part of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA). The members of the eight congregations amount to about 8,000 of the diocese's roughly 90,000 Episcopalians.

The Episcopal Church includes some 7,200 congregations in its 100 domestic dioceses, and about 150 in its 10 overseas dioceses and one convocation.

The full text of Lee's statement is available here.

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Another excerpt:

KJS statement: "We are saddened when individuals decide they must leave the Episcopal Church, for we are diminished when any brother or sister departs from the community," Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said in reply to a reporter's inquiry late last week.

"We live in a time and a society that is easily drawn to polarities. These departures are taking place in most mainline denominations, and are an expression of the anxiety of our times and the discomfort many people feel in trying to live in tension. Anglicanism has always held that living in the tension of comprehensiveness is our vocation. God gives us a gift in the midst of that diversity, and we more fully know both truth and God's will for us when we are able to embrace that diversity. The quick fix embraced in drawing lines or in departing is not going to be an ultimate solution for our discomfort."