Episcopal Churches To Vote on Departure

Jim Pierobon, a member of The Falls Church serving as a spokesman for both churches, said he believes Akinola is trying to ease tensions between Nigerian Anglicans and Muslims by supporting the law. That doesn't mean the leadership issue doesn't weigh on Pierobon's conscience.

"I can't ignore what's gone on," he said Friday. "It gives me pause. But I understand it well enough that it's not a show-stopper."

William Fetsch was one of only two members of the 18-member Falls Church vestry who last month voted to recommend not splitting. A member since 1980, he said Saturday that he believes conservatives have an obligation to stay in the U.S. church and "bear witness" to their viewpoint on things such as homosexuality and the literal truth of Jesus's resurrection.

"I still think it's premature," he said of a split. "We've been inhibited in no way from preaching the gospel as we see fit."

Some conservatives were taken aback by a letter issued Friday by Bishop Peter James Lee of the Diocese of Virginia, reminding voting churches that they could be in for a costly fight over property and clergy pensions and health care, rather than a peaceful settlement.

"If your church decides to leave," the letter says, "I believe your successors in the future will regret that decision and its destructive consequences for the whole church."

Pierobon said he thought that Lee was trying to intimidate congregants from voting yes on the split.

Other religious denominations have been roiled in recent years by the issue of homosexuality, but a major schism would be unprecedented in the Episcopal Church, which remained united even through the Civil War.

"The difference between the Episcopal Church and the others is that Episcopalians are really loath to split about anything," said Diana Butler Bass, a U.S. church historian who believes politics, not theology, has been driving divisions in the Episcopal Church since the 1980s. "What will win now? This politicized culture, or that old Anglican, spiritual way of being in the world?"

The size of the division in the U.S. church is hotly debated on blogs across the spectrum. About 140 dissident churches have joined a splinter group called the Anglican Mission in America, said the Rev. David C. Anderson, an orthodox advocate. After Jefferts Schori's election this summer, seven of the 111 U.S. dioceses rejected her authority. Since 2003, the U.S. church estimates that it lost nearly 115,000 members. Its membership is now about 2.3 million.

As the San Joaquin vote approached, Jefferts Schori announced Thursday she would formalize the creation of a high-ranking position to oversee the seven dissenting dioceses -- a move some saw as conciliatory, others as a last-ditch effort.

"This isn't a fun thing," said Ward LeHardy, 71, whose Northern Neck church, St. Stephens of Heathsville, plans to vote this Sunday whether to join CANA. LeHardy's family has been in the Episcopal Church for 150 years. "But it's our belief that if you believe in the Lord and you believe in what the Bible says, then you better do something. Otherwise, you're complicit."

Staff writer Alan Cooperman, staff researcher Karl Evanzz and graphics editor April Umminger contributed to his report.