Moderate Virginia bishop illustrates Episcopal divide
By Michelle Boorstein
Washington Post
Sat, Feb. 24, 2007

WASHINGTON – If the Episcopal Church has been a rocky boat in recent decades, Virginia Bishop Peter James Lee has been one of its anchors.

Liberals and conservatives alike have described the white-coiffed Southerner – one of the most senior bishops in the U.S. church – as a moderate statesman. When a conservative group of parishioners split from his North Carolina church in the 1970s over women’s ordination, he was in the front pew when members opened their new church. Although he wouldn’t approve same-sex commitment ceremonies in Virginia, he encouraged clergy to bless couples’ homes instead.

But as the genteel bishop prepares to retire after almost 40 years, he has become a national lighting rod while leading the diocese in a bitter property dispute with a handful of breakaway conservative congregations. Suddenly a foe of traditionalists and the commander of an unsightly legal battle, Lee, a 68-year-old former newspaper reporter, is facing an unexpected closing chapter to his legacy. the rest