By ELIZABETH HAMILTON
Courant Staff Writer
January 21, 2008
(Groton, CT) As the annual meeting was drawing to an end Sunday afternoon, and the light from the enormous window behind the pulpit was fading, a member of Bishop Seabury Church stood up and announced that the Holy Spirit had sent him a message.
The congregation, he said, should go forward, lay hands on the Rev. Ronald Gauss and the entire vestry, and pray for them, which they did, every man, woman and child, in an emotional moment that spoke clearly about the changes on the horizon for this vibrant, evangelical church.
Bishop Seabury, an Episcopal Church for 132 years, has severed ties with its historic roots by joining the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA), and putting itself under the spiritual and ecclesiastic direction of a more conservative bishop.
Members of Bishop Seabury say they are not the ones initiating the split — "The Episcopal Church finally kicked us to the curb" said Stan Price, junior warden — and lay the blame on a too-liberal theology that doesn't reflect their beliefs.
"The Episcopal Church doesn't believe in the Bible anymore," Price said. "We read the Bible. We don't interpret the Bible."
However the split is interpreted, Bishop Seabury faces an almost certain legal battle with the diocese over whether it or the diocese owns the property where the congregation worships.
The first salvo has already been fired.
Gauss told the congregation Sunday that Connecticut Bishop Andrew Smith sent him a letter a week ago giving the congregation until Jan. 20 — Sunday — to vacate the property.
In the case of the Groton church, where the congregation moved into a new sanctuary less than a decade ago that was paid for entirely out of its own funds, the stakes seem especially high.
"This is more than just a building to me. It's my house of worship," said Rick Vanderslice, former senior warden of the church. "Not a penny from the diocese or the national church went into this building."
Church officials in Connecticut and at national headquarters have taken the position that church property, although titled in the name of individual parishes, is held in trust for the Episcopal Church under what is known as the Dennis Canon.
Smith, who confirmed last week that he considers Bishop Seabury to have abandoned the diocese, also removed the church wardens and vestry via letter.
At Bishop Seabury on Sunday, however, the members of the congregation were unbowed as they moved through two morning worship services, ate lunch together, and then joined together in the afternoon to re-elect their deposed vestry in defiance of the bishop's orders.
Gauss, who has led Bishop Seabury for 32 years, encouraged his congregation to keep its resolve.
"You are the only ones that have the authority and responsibility to determine who is the vestry and the rector of this church," Gauss said. "Fire the vestry, and you will reconfirm that they are the vestry. Fire the wardens, and you will reconfirm they are your wardens."
What is unfolding at Bishop Seabury, and at a handful of other Connecticut churches known as "The Connecticut Six," echoes what is happening across the United States as conservative Episcopalians break from the national church over differences of opinion about Scripture.
The differences, which have manifested themselves in public squabbles over the ordination of gay clergy and women and the blessing of same-sex unions, threaten to tear apart not only the fabric of the American church but also jeopardize its relationship to the wider, 80 million-member Anglican Communion.
Dozens of individual parishes and, in some cases, entire dioceses have broken with the Episcopal Church in the past few years to join either the Roman Catholic Church or other branches of the Anglican Communion.
These actions have created costly and lengthy fights over property rights, which officials in Connecticut are watching closely, around the nation.
In Connecticut, the fracas began in earnest after the 2003 consecration of the non-celibate gay bishop of New Hampshire, Gene Robinson.
Gauss, along with the priests of five other Connecticut churches, asked to be put under the direction of another bishop after Smith supported Robinson.
The relationship worsened when Smith took over one of the churches, St. John's in Bristol, in 2005 and ousted its pastor.
The six churches also stopped sending money to the diocese, and then sued Smith, citing civil rights violations, after he declared their priests to be "out of communion" with him. The churches lost that lawsuit and appealed.
Gauss and the other five priests also accused Smith of violating church law, but Smith was cleared of those ecclesiastical charges last year.
With the exception of Bishop Seabury and Trinity Church in Bristol, which have both joined CANA and whose members have so far refused to leave church property under orders from the diocese, the actions of the six churches have varied greatly.
At Christ and The Epiphany Church in East Haven, half the congregation stayed with the Episcopal Church and stayed on the property, while the other half followed the minister to a new church home.
Members of Christ Church in Watertown took another route — they voted themselves out of the Episcopal Church and agreed to leave the property, setting up a new church home in a community room at a local bank.
St. John's in Bristol has continued under the direction of the diocese since Smith ousted its priest. Only St. Paul's in Darien remains uncertain. Its priest, Christopher Leighton, said his congregation has not decided whether to leave the Episcopal Church.
At Bishop Seabury, where the church mantra seems to be "It's all about you, Jesus," and where the congregation embraces a joyful mix of traditional and evangelical rituals, such as a formal communion accompanied by hands-on healing, people seemed saddened, but steeled for the changes about to come.
"This is just a building. It is not the church," said Arthur Hayward, the newly elected senior warden of the church. "We are the church."
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