More Lawsuits May Emerge in S.C.

February 18, 2010

Parties to one of the longest-lasting legal disputes involving the Episcopal Church have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the matter on appeal.

The petition for a writ of certiorari asks the Supreme Court to rule in a legal battle involving All Saints, Waccamaw, S.C., which separated from the Diocese of South Carolina after its rector, Charles H. “Chuck” Murphy III, became a founding bishop of the Anglican Mission in the Americas.

The petition involves the consolidated cases of All Saints Parish, Waccamaw v. Protestant Episcopal Church and Green v. Campbell.

The Rt. Rev. Edward L. Salmon, Jr., Bishop of South Carolina from 1990 to 2007, was a party to All Saints v. Protestant Episcopal Church. The Rt. Rev. Mark Lawrence, who became Bishop of South Carolina in 2008, has never been a party to the dispute.

Meanwhile, the Diocese of South Carolina’s former chancellor, Thomas T. Tisdale, has sent a series of letters to its current chancellor, Wade H. Logan III, regarding four other parishes, some of which have distanced themselves from the Episcopal Church. the rest