wfn.org | Controversial Maryland priest renounces ECUSA orders

[ENS@ecunet.org]

2002-165

Controversial Maryland priest
renounces ECUSA orders

by Jan Nunley
jnunley@episcopalchurch.org

(ENS) In a fiery statement to the press, reminiscent of his
writings before accepting a call to be a rector in
small-town Maryland, the Rev. Samuel Lee Edwards on
June 27 renounced his orders as a priest of the Episcopal
Church, which he denounced as a "cartel of ecclesiastical
despots." 

The controversial priest, canonically resident in the
Diocese of Fort Worth, said he has asked to be received
as a priest in the Anglican Province of Christ the King
(APCK), a breakaway church formed in 1977 to protest
the ordination of women and the proposed revision of the
1928 Book of Common Prayer by the Episcopal Church.
Edwards' attorney, Charles Nalls, was recently ordained
as a priest in the APCK. The Diocese of Fort Worth is
one of three Episcopal dioceses whose bishops refuse to
ordain or license women priests. 

Edwards said he plans to "remain in Southern Maryland
for the purpose of assisting in the establishment there of a
new congregation" of the APCK. "I believe that I have
done all that I can do in the effort to recall The Episcopal
Church to its godly heritage of evangelical faith and
catholic order," the statement said. "That effort, and my
part in it, appears to have been unsuccessful." 

A 'hell-bound' Unchurch

Edwards, the vestry of Christ Church and St. John's
Parish in Accokeek, Maryland, and then-bishop of
Washington pro tempore Jane Holmes Dixon have been
battling in the ecclesiastical and secular courts for almost
18 months over Edwards' attempts to become rector of
the parish. The saga began in the fall of 2000, when
Edwards first received a call from the vestry. 

At the time, Edwards was wrapping up his term as
executive director of Forward in Faith/North America
(FIF/NA), successor to two previous organizations
formed to oppose the ordination of women in the
Episcopal Church. His teachings concerning the
Episcopal Church, widely published in the group's
magazine FOUNDATIONS, included a 1997 editorial
calling ECUSA "the Unchurch," a 1998 editorial saying
that ECUSA practices "institutionalized lawlessness," a
2000 editorial saying that the "machinery" of the
Episcopal Church is "hell-bound" and advocating
"gumming up the works," and another 2000 editorial
urging clergy and congregations to "sever their
connections" with ECUSA. 

When the Christ Church vestry informed Dixon in
December that they planned to elect Edwards as rector,
she scheduled a meeting with the Fort Worth priest to
discuss the call, which he then cancelled and rescheduled
for a date six weeks later. That became a point of
contention between them, for when Dixon rejected
Edwards' call on the grounds that he was "not qualified"
to be a rector in the Washington diocese, Edwards and
the vestry claimed that Dixon had exceeded the amount
of time allocated to a bishop to reject a vestry's choice of
rector. Dixon and diocesan attorneys countered that,
while there is a 30-day limit for bishops to respond to a
notice of intent to elect a particular priest, no such limit is
implied in the canons for a bishop's response to the
results of an election, including refusal to accept the priest
as a rector. 

Court rules for bishop

Regardless, Edwards moved into the parish's rectory and
continued to function as a priest even after a 60-day limit
had passed during which he could do so without a license
from the bishop. When Dixon then visited the
congregation, parish leaders refused to allow her to
function as a bishop on the church's grounds and
threatened to have her and her aides and supporters
arrested for trespassing. The case was brought before a
Federal judge, who ruled that Dixon, as the ecclesiastical
authority of the diocese, should be given full access to the
parish, and ordered Edwards to vacate the rectory. A
Federal appeals court upheld the ruling. 

Both Dixon and Edwards were charged with violations of
the church's canons by competing groups of clergy. The
charges against Dixon were dropped. The charges against
Edwards were pending in Fort Worth's ecclesiastical
court, but the trial has been cancelled in light of the
renunciation of his ministry in the Episcopal Church. 

Departure a 'tragedy'

In his press statement, Edwards said that the Episcopal
Church "now stands revealed as an enemy of Evangelical
Faith, Catholic Truth, Apostolic Order, and Godly Life"
and accused "the vast majority" of its bishops of being
"complicit either by their active support of Jane Dixon's
aggression or by their craven acquiescence in it." 

"Thanks to Jane Dixon and her allies and sponsors, the
Episcopal Church stands revealed as an institution that
still wears the vesture of constitutionality, but which in
reality has become a cartel of ecclesiastical despots who,
because only they are allowed authoritatively and
individually to interpret the law of the Church, are
themselves above that law," Edwards wrote. "The
Episcopal Church thus has no constitutional order worthy
of the name. Its constitution and canons are of no more
significance to its real life than was the constitution of the
former Soviet Union, which served only to cloak in the
appearance of justice and order the lust for power and
dominion." 

Edwards urged "those who believe as Anglicans
traditionally have believed" to leave the Episcopal Church
"with what we can carry even if such be only our souls." 

In a statement issued the same day as Edwards', Fort
Worth bishop Jack Iker said that he received the priest's
notification "with deep regret" and called it a "tragedy that
yet another traditionalist priest has been so marginalized
and persecuted by the liberal establishment of ECUSA."
Iker said that, following the consent of the diocesan
standing committee, he will impose a sentence of
deposition on Edwards. 

The newly consecrated bishop of Washington, John
Chane, refused to comment on Edwards' decision, as did
the senior warden of Christ Church, Barbara Sturman. 

Original documents related to the Christ Church,
Accokeek controversy are available as PDF files on
the Episcopal Diocese of Washington's web site in the
section marked Press Releases for 2000 and 2001.

--The Rev. Jan Nunley is deputy director of
Episcopal News Service.