Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh

This article is about the diocese formerly known as the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone. For the diocese of the Episcopal Church, see Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh.

Diocese of Pittsburgh
Location
Ecclesiastical province	Anglican Church in North America
Statistics
Parishes	54
Members	20,263 (2004)*
Information
Rite	Anglican
Cathedral	Trinity Cathedral
Current leadership
Bishop	The Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan
Website
pitanglican.org
Counts from before the schism

The Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh, formerly known as the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh (Southern Cone), is a diocese of the Anglican Church in North America. It has parishes in the several counties of Western Pennsylvania. The diocese originated from the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, a diocese of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, founded in 1865. In 2008, the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh split into two bodies when the majority of its parishes left the Episcopal Church to become the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh.

The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh's schism began at its October 2008 diocesan convention when a majority of delegates passed a resolution to withdraw from the Episcopal Church and associate themselves with the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone. These actions were believed by the Episcopal Church to be ultra vires and null, and a minority of the pre-schsim parishes and members remain in the Episcopal Church and continue as the Diocese of Pittsburgh of the Episcopal Church. Both dioceses claim to be the successor to the pre-schism diocese, and they both continued to use the same name until a legal decision found that the remaining Episcopalians (those who did not align with the Southern Cone) constituted the actual Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. The Southern Cone portion of the diocese was renamed the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh.

Before the 2008 schism, the diocese included 66 individual parishes and in 2004 had a total membership of 20,263. Membership totals have not been released since the realignment. In addition to its parishes, the diocese is home to numerous other Episcopal/Anglican organizations including the Community of Celebration, the Church Army, Rock the World Youth Mission Alliance, and the South American Missionary Society. Perhaps the most prominent of these is Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, a leading conservative evangelical seminary. The relationship of these various bodies to the two post-schism bodies in the diocese is currently in flux. The cathedral of the pre-schism diocese, Trinity Cathedral, located in downtown Pittsburgh, was shared by both the Anglican diocese and the Episcopal diocese until December 2011, when the cathedral chapter voted to align only with the Episcopal Diocese.

History

Early history

In the mid-18th century, southwestern Pennsylvania was traversed by Indian traders, exploring surveyors and military men. Later, it also began to attract settlers of European ethnic origin, many of whom were at least nominal Anglicans primarily from Maryland, eastern Pennsylvania, and Virginia. The earliest penetration of the southwest corner of the state, then sparsely populated with Indians, was made by Episcopalians who set up posts in the 1740s along the Allegheny, Youghiogheny and Ohio rivers. Maryland surveyor Christopher Gist crossed the mountains in the early 1750s to survey large claims of the best farm land. Young George Washington, already a Virginia vestryman, was guided by Gist when he came west to warn the French to withdraw from this region claimed by the British. The French's refusal to leave led to invasion and capture of the tiny stockade built by Virginians at the future site of Pittsburgh in 1754. Washington read the burial office from the 1662 Prayer Book in 1755 when British churchman General Edward Braddock, fatally wounded while attempting to drive the French from Fort Duquesne at the Forks, was carried back over Chestnut Ridge and buried in the middle of the wagon tracks of US 40 in Fayette County. The successful 1758 campaign of British churchman General John Forbes marked the end of French control of the region.

When the first new migrating settlers arrived in the 1760s, there were no settled Episcopal clergy. Laity read Morning Prayer, mainly in farm cabins but sometimes at Fort Burd or Fort Pitt, or in public houses as those were established. Before the American Revolution there were no organized Episcopal churches left anywhere in this corner of the state. Some of the more dedicated laity maintained Prayer Book worship in their homes until after the first Convention of 1789, but they kept no records, elected no vestries, and built no houses for worship. From then until the 1820s, the leadership of the scattered congregations established was mainly in the hands of the few early ministers who sought ordination as Episcopalians and rode wide itinerant circuits.

The first known Episcopal clergy resident in this western third of what was then Diocese of Pennsylvania included: Robert Ayres, a Methodist ordained in 1789, residing at Brownsville, Fayette County; Francis Reno, trained for the ministry by Presbyterians and ordained in 1791, residing at Woodville, Allegheny County; Joseph Doddridge, a Methodist ordained in 1792, residing in Independence, Washington County; and John Taylor, a Presbyterian ordained in 1794, who resided in Hanover Township, Washington County, before moving to Pittsburgh in order to teach school.

In 1865, the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania was divided, and the western part became known as the Diocese of Pittsburgh. John Barrett Kerfoot was the first bishop of the diocese.

Realignment

Background

Calvary Episcopal Church

Beginning with the leadership of Bishop Alden Hathaway (1983–1997), and intensifying under Bishop Robert Duncan, the Diocese of Pittsburgh has been a front line in the recent struggles within the Episcopal Church. Bishop Duncan in particular had taken up a prominent role in the conservative position within the national church. In 2003, he and a group of other conservative bishops walked out of General Convention after the House of Bishops approved the election of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire and the Episcopal Church's first openly gay bishop. In January 2004 Duncan was elected the first moderator of the Anglican Communion Network.

Opposition to Bishop Duncan was well-organized and at least moderately successful. In 2003, Calvary Episcopal Church in Shadyside sued the diocese (and Bishops Duncan and Scriven specifically) over actions taken by a special convention the diocese held after the 2003 General Convention. At the special convention, the diocese had passed a resolution that asserted that all property of individual parishes belonged to the parishes themselves, rather than to the diocese. In the suit, Calvary claimed that the diocese could not take such an action, as it violated the Dennis Canon. The parties signed a court-approved settlement in October 2005. The settlement confirmed that all diocesan property would remain the property of "The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh of the Episcopal Church U.S.A." even if a majority of parishes left the Episcopal Church. It also created a process by which the diocese agreed to make decisions about property and assets should a congregation wish to leave the diocese.

On December 29, 2006, Bishop Duncan applied to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to register a new corporation under the name of "Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh" for the purposes of "upholding the historic Faith and Order as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer". This application made no mention of the General Convention, nor did it specify a version or specific national edition of the Book of Common Prayer to be upheld.

Withdrawal from the Episcopal Church

On November 2, 2007, the Convention of the Diocese of Pittsburgh voted to change its constitution to remove accession to the constitution and canons of the Episcopal Church. Constitutional changes require votes at two successive annual conventions. The vote was 118 to 58 in the lay order and 109 to 24 in the clergy order.

A September 18, 2008 session of the House of Bishops deposed Bishop Duncan from ordained ministry on charges of abandoning the communion of the Episcopal Church. After many years of controversy, a majority of the diocesan convention voted to leave the Episcopal Church and join the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone in October 2008. The Province of the Southern Cone is a sister province of the Episcopal Church, both belonging to the Anglican Communion. 119 (62%) of 191 lay deputies and 121 (75%) of 160 of clergy deputies voted on the second reading of constitutional changes intended to facilitate removing the Diocese from the Episcopal Church. In additional votes, canonical changes were approved that were intended to move the diocese into the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone. However, the status of this relationship is unclear as the canon law of the Southern Cone may be unclear about its membership requirements. Also, some persons assert that the realignment of the diocese was not possible because the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church make no provision for such a procedure. The Anglican Communion did not identify this diocese as in any way connected with the Province of the Southern Cone.

The diocese's standing committee, the ecclesiastical authority in the absence of a bishop, supported the vote for realignment with one exception. The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh was the second diocese whose convention voted to leave the Episcopal Church in this fashion, after the Diocese of San Joaquin.

Post-realignment

On November 7, 2008, Robert Duncan was again elected to be the diocesan bishop. In 2009, the members of the diocese joined with other Anglican bodies to form the Anglican Church of North America. Diocesan canons stated that the diocese was also a part of the Province of the Southern Cone, until the diocesan convention voted to affiliate with ACNA only in November 2009. Clergy retain dual affiliations.

Calvary had returned to court asking for enforcement of the stipulation paragraph guaranteeing that diocesan property would remain with a diocese in the Episcopal Church in late 2006. In October 2009, the Commonwealth Court ruled that all diocesan property belonged to the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh that was part of the Episcopal Church. In January 2010 the court received a schedule of property including an investment portfolio of over $20 million and the deeds to 49 properties including 22 occupied by congregations participating in the Anglican Church of North America. The Commonwealth Court of Appeals affirmed the award of property February 2011 and refused to reconsider its ruling in March 2011.

External links

• Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh website