Colorado Springs parish votes to break from Episcopal Church

Jean Torkelson, Rocky Mountain News

Sunday, May 27, 2007

A majority of voting members at Grace Church and St. Stephens Parish in Colorado Springs have declared their willingness to break away from the Episcopal Church to join a conservative Anglican network more in line with their beliefs, according to spokesman Alan Crippen.

The vote, tallied Saturday, showed 93 percent of 370 voting members approved of the plan to leave the Episcopal Church, Crippen said. It capped an ongoing period of uncertainty that began March 26 when parish rector, The Rev. Don Armstrong, and a majority of the church’s governing board, declared they were each individually leaving the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Colorado.

Because the schismatic act was so unusual, the breakaway parish leaders said they would set up a vote to determine what parishioners wanted to do.

Armstrong has been under an ongoing investigation by the diocese of misusing hundreds of thousands of dollars in parish funds. He denies the charge and says is an act of revenge by the diocese and Bishop Rob O’Neill because of his conservative beliefs.

In a second ballot question, 78 percent of the voters declared they wanted the breakaway leadership of Grace Church to continue fighting to hold on to the church property at 601 N. Tejon St. The 135-year-old property, which occupies a city block, is now embroiled in a legal dispute with the Episcopal Church in El Paso County District Court.

Crippen said he believed the "no" votes on both ballot questions came from Grace Church members loyal to the diocese and to Bishop Rob O’Neill, even though the Episcopal loyalists had said all along that they would refuse to legitimize Armstrong’s cause by participating in the vote.

Crippen said the will of the voting majority was indisputable, "and showed clearly a very strong mandate to affirm the vestry decision of March 26 (to leave the Episcopal Church)."

The parish leaders set up a weeklong voting process which they assured parishioners would be conducted with the rigor of a municipal election. It was complete with voting booths, an official ballot, and overseen by El Paso County Clerk and recorder Bob Balink, who is also a parishioner.

In a statement Saturday, senior vestry member Jon Wroblewski called the vote the most important in the church’s 135-year-old history and said, "we have decided to remain true to the faith of our ancestors." (See link to full statement of Grace Church and St. Stephen's)

Meanwhile, the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado argues that Grace Church’s mutiny from its historic moorings has less to do with theological differences than with its decision to side with Armstrong, its rector of 20 years.



"The seizing of property rightfully belonging to the Episcopal Church is nothing more than a sadly misguided effort to restore to a position of public trust a priest who is currently under ecclesiastical indictment for the misappropriation of church funds," said Beckett Stokes, the dicoese’s communications director, in a statement.

Stokes said the voting process was illegitimate because in the Episcopal system, "parishes are not established by a vote of the congregation but only by actions taken by a diocesan convention and ecclesiastical authority." (See link to full statement of the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado)

Between 200 and 400 members of Grace Church members are estimated to be loyal to the diocese, according to Stokes. They are currently worshiping at First Christian Church, 16 E. Platte Ave.

Although the Episcopal Diocese doesn’t recognize the vote’s legitimacy, the parish’s leadership say the balloting gives them the go-ahead to bring the parish into the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA), a network of conservative parishes from around the country who have left the Episcopal Church because they believe it’s strayed far from traditional Christian doctrines on sexuality and scriptural authority.

CANA is under the authority of the Anglican Province of Nigeria, one of 38 provinces - as is the Episcopal Church -- of the worldwide Anglican Communion.

Historically, the parish at 601 N. Tejon St. has been regarded as one of the largest and most influential Episcopal churches in Colorado. Both the Armstrong loyalists and the Diocese of Colorado estimate it to have about 800 regular weekly attendees, on par with St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral in Denver, the diocese’s flagship parish and home to the bishop.

Crippen said he didn’t consider the 370 votes to necessarily represent a low voter turnout or distinterest, because there may be elderly, younger members and travelers who may not have been able to participate.

However, Stokes interpreted the "no" votes and the voter turnout to possible "ambivalence" on the part of many parishioners to leave the Episcopal Church and to follow Armstrong, who remains under church investigation.

During the 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. services Sunday, Crippen said, the parish will celebrate its official departure from the Episcopal Church. In a symbolic gesture, in place of the Episcopal flag, they will fly the Anglican "compass rose" flag, a sign of the worldwide influence of the 77-million member Anglican Communion, which has its roots in the Church of England, established in the 16th century by Henry VIII.