Church Fight Heats Up
Episcopalians Act On Bristol Parish
By ELIZABETH HAMILTON
Courant Staff Writer
November 4, 2007

A bid by Connecticut Episcopal leaders to force members of a renegade Bristol parish to vacate their church building is getting some extra legal muscle.

The national church has filed papers in court seeking intervenor status in a lawsuit against Trinity Episcopal Church brought by the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut. It accuses the Rev. Donald Helmandollar and church leaders of trespassing on church property.

Members of the Trinity parish voted to leave the Episcopal Church last May because of disagreement over the 2003 election of an openly gay New Hampshire bishop and the church's blessing of same-sex unions. Around the same time, Trinity members voted to join the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, a self-described mission of the conservative Anglican Church of Nigeria. the rest