Bishop David Bena: Former Marine now leads a spiritual struggle

Greenwich man left Episcopal Church to join conservative offshoot
By MARC PARRY Staff writer
Albany Times Union
Monday, September 15, 2008

GREENWICH -- Over a salad lunch on an outdoor patio, Assistant Bishop David Bena is so positive and chipper it's hard to connect him with the words of a letter to the editor on the table.
"Well, that's interesting," Bena says cheerfully. "I've never been called a guerrilla warrior."

This is life on the front lines of an emotional rift cleaving the Anglican Communion, the 77-million-member Christian federation that encompasses the U.S. Episcopal Church.

Five years ago, Bena was serving as assistant bishop in Albany when Episcopalians took what he considered a misguided step: electing the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire. Bena was one of three people to stand up and protest at the consecration ceremony where Robinson, who has received death threats, wore a bulletproof vest.

Today, Bena still wears a bishop's ring, but he no longer belongs to the Episcopal Church. Since last March, the Mechanicville resident and former Marine has worked as assistant bishop in an upstart group called the Convocation of Anglicans in North America.

The Virginia-based outpost of the Nigerian church was established to shelter breakaway conservative Episcopalians, who were outraged over Robinson's consecration and clash with the Episcopal Church on doctrine and interpretation of scripture. the rest