The Diocese of San Joaquin has voted to become the first to split away from the US Episcopal Church on the issue of homosexuality. A diocese spokesman, the Rev Van McCalister, said the diocese had voted to remove all references to the Episcopal Church from its constitution.
The vote at their national convention on Saturday was overwhelming, with 173 clergy and lay members voting to leave the national church compared to only 22 voting to stay, reports AP.
The split has come about due to profound differences over the issue of homosexuality. The US Episcopal Church has taken an increasingly liberal stance on the issue by permitting same sex blessings and by failing to renounce the principle of homosexual bishops.
Divisions deepened in 2003 when Gene Robinson of New Hampshire was consecrated as the first openly gay bishop in the Anglican Communion.
The Diocese of San Joaquin is now planning to align itself with the conservative Anglican Province of the Southern Cone in South America, headed by Archbishop Gregory Venables of Argentina.
It is highly likely that the Episcopal Church will claim property rights of the diocese’s real estate, worth millions of dollars, in which case a legal battle could ensue. When parishes have split from the Church previously, the courts have tended to rule in favour of the Episcopal Church rather than the seceding parish.
According to AP, McCalister said, "We have leadership in the Episcopal Church that has drastically and radically changed directions.
“They have pulled the rug out from under us. They've started teaching something very different, something very new and novel, and it's impossible for us to follow a leadership that has so drastically reinvented itself."
The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori warned the Bishop of San Joaquin, John-David Schofield, against splitting from the national Church. However, she did not name the specific consequences of such an act.
