The Episcopal Church, traditionally, has found its unity in common worship, the Holy Scriptures as the revealed Word of God, the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion, the historic episcopate, and the ancient creeds of the Church. These define essential core beliefs. Over the years, there have been controversies about both belief and practice, but Episcopalians have continued to worship together. Those now in dissent within The Episcopal Church seek to elevate a number of specific positions, especially regarding human sexuality, to the status of core beliefs required of all Christians. Underlying these differences are disagreements about the proper ways to use and interpret scripture and to resolve the ancient tension within Christian thinking between love and law.

Those unhappy with the 1976 decision to ordain women as priests and the 1979 adoption of a revised Book of Common Prayer organized throughout the 1980s. In June of 1989, following the February 1989 consecration in Boston of Barbara Harris as the first female bishop in the Anglican Communion, Bishop Clarence Pope of the Diocese of Fort Worth founded the Episcopal Synod of America [ESA] as an organization for those who opposed the ordination of women.

From its beginning, the goal of the ESA was the creation of an “orthodox” province of the Anglican Communion in North America. The ESA later became Forward in Faith North America [FIFNA]. In 1996 FIFNA and other dissenting organizations joined forces with evangelicals to form the American Anglican Council. Even though some in this new group supported the ordination of women and others did not, they found common ground in opposing the church’s dialogue on human sexuality.

After the 2003 General Convention of The Episcopal Church, they protested the decision to consecrate Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire and the resolutions of General Convention related to human sexuality, and they appealed to leaders (primates) of other provinces in the Anglican Communion for a judgment against The Episcopal Church, even though those primates have no authority over The Episcopal Church.

While representing a tiny minority within The Episcopal Church, their view is the dominant one in the Diocese of Fort Worth. The dissenters claim to represent the majority view within the Anglican Communion, at least on the subject of homosexuality. However, that is not the case with the ordination of women. The majority of the provinces in the Anglican Communion now ordain women to the priesthood and increasing numbers are ordaining women to the episcopate.

The efforts of the dissenting minority have not convinced The Episcopal Church to change the decisions of General Convention 2003. The election of Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori at General Convention 2006 confirmed that The Episcopal Church would continue to include a broad spectrum of theological thinking. Permitting such diversity of interpretation is unacceptable to the dissenters. The fact that the new presiding bishop is a woman is especially unacceptable to the leadership of the Diocese of Fort Worth, who hold that women are not “proper matter” for ordination to the priesthood or episcopate. Thus they maintain that Katharine Jefferts Schori is not a priest, much less a bishop. Immediately following her election, Bishop Jack Iker asked for “alternate primatial oversight” from a male primate.

The Diocese of Fort Worth has played a major role in the controversy. As noted in Question 2, diocesan clergy helped found the American Anglican Council and have been articulate spokespersons for their cause. Following the 2003 General Convention, the diocesan leadership moved to join new organizations that emerged, especially the Anglican Communion Network (ACN), and most recently, The Common Cause Partnership. The special and annual diocesan conventions of 2003, 2004, and 2006 amended the diocesan constitution and passed resolutions that increasingly cut the diocese off from The Episcopal Church and denied the authority of General Convention and of national church leaders. Bishop Jack Iker was the first bishop to ask for alternate primatial oversight.

Diocesan leaders are offering only one course of action: to separate as a group from The Episcopal Church, and join some other Province that does not ordain women to the priesthood or episcopate. They are attempting to “take the diocese out of The Episcopal Church.”

This is the direction in which the leadership has been heading since the founding of this diocese. The bishop and the General Convention deputies have made a point not to participate in the worship services of General Convention. Bishop Iker has stopped attending meetings of the House of Bishops except for a few, very short exceptions. For instance, he attended the most recent House of Bishops meeting in New Orleans only to hear the presentation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had been invited to address the bishops. He left without participating in the rest of the meeting.

Bishop Iker has declared the diocese to be in impaired communion with most of the Anglican Communion on the matter of the ordination of women and out of communion with anyone who agrees with the actions of General Convention on the matter of human sexuality. He also has declared that even should the diocese separate from The Episcopal Church, “. . . we will be in full communion with only those Common Cause partners which do not ordain women or receive ordained women into the priesthood. Our cooperation with the bodies that do so cannot extend to communio in sacris but we will cooperate with them in every way possible in a state of continuing impaired communion.”

First, some history.
General Convention approves the creation of new dioceses. The constitution of The Episcopal Church requires that the constitution of a new diocese include “an unqualified accession to the Constitution and Canons” of The Episcopal Church. This is called the accession clause. The original state conventions whose representatives wrote the 1789 constitution for the church also acceded to the constitution as part of the approval process. General Convention created the Diocese of Fort Worth in 1982. Its constitution was approved with such an accession clause. Once a diocese has acceded, it no longer has the power to withdraw that accession or to modify it because it becomes a subordinate unit to the general church.

However, in November 1997, the accession clause in the Fort Worth diocesan constitution was amended to read:

“The Church in this Diocese accedes to the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church, and recognizes the authority of the General Convention of said Church provided that no action of General Convention which is contrary to Holy Scripture and the Apostolic Teaching of the Church shall be of any force or effect in this Diocese.” [Emphasis added]

In October of 2006, David Boothe Beers, chancellor to the presiding bishop, wrote to the chancellor of the Diocese of Fort Worth requesting that the diocese remove the qualifications to the accession clause. In June 2007, the Executive Council of The Episcopal Church passed a resolution calling such changes “null and void.” This may be of importance in any litigation that may arise in the future.

This year, the standing committee of the Diocese of Fort Worth has proposed a series of constitutional and canonical changes that will, they claim, remove the diocese and all property from The Episcopal Church. These provisions will be voted on at the diocesan convention on November 17, 2007. If they pass this preliminary vote, they will have to be voted on again at the next diocesan convention in order to become final.

Some delegates who wish to remain in The Episcopal Church have introduced proposed constitutional Amendment A, which would restore an unqualified accession clause to the diocesan constitution and recognize the authority of General Convention; and proposed constitutional Amendment B, which would restore the title to all property to being held in trust “for the benefit of The Episcopal Church In the United States of America and its constituent bodies in Accordance with the Constitution and Canons of said Church.”

The diocesan Committee on Constitution and Canons unanimously recommended rejection of these proposals.

All authority in The Episcopal Church flows from General Convention, the triennial meeting of the elected deputies (clergy and lay) and bishops of The Episcopal Church. Only General Convention has the power to change the constitution or canons (church laws) of The Episcopal Church. All policy decisions of the church must be approved by both the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies. The presiding bishop chairs meetings of the House of Bishops; the House of Deputies has its own elected president. The Executive Council, an elected representative body including bishops, clergy, and laity, is charged with carrying out the decisions of General Convention between sessions.

While Bishop Iker objects to the presiding bishop because of her gender, he has also joined others in the dissenting minority in raising questions about Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori’s theology, which reflects the inclusive love of God (John 15:12) and God’s absolute power to save. She has stated that Jesus Christ is “her way” and the “church’s way” to salvation, but that it is not her job to “put God in a box” or to set rules about whom God may save.

From an interview with the presiding bishop in Time Magazine:

Is belief in Jesus the only way to get to heaven?
"We who practice the Christian tradition understand him as our vehicle to the divine. But for us to assume that God would not act in other ways is, I think, to put God in an awfully small box."

The presiding bishop calls us to consider what is required of a Christian community in response to God’s love. The view she expressed in that interview is similar to that of Vatican II (Nostra ætate), namely that Jesus Christ is the final self-revelation of God in the world, but that salvation is possible outside of the Christian Church.

The Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church says:
“Those who, through no fault of their own, do not knowthe Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.”

There are some who have held that extra ecclesiam nulla salus — outside the Church there is no salvation. But this is not consistent with Jesus’ behavior toward Gentiles nor the teaching of Paul about grace. What is essential, as the presiding bishop noted, is that Christians do not know how God saves people outside the New Covenant. Somehow Jesus Christ, through whom all things were made, makes provision, since through him all people are offered salvation. Some were also disturbed by her reference to “Jesus our Mother in her sermon after her election. In using this metaphor, she was following an ancient tradition of referring to Jesus as “mother.” Such people as Pope John Paul I (Angelus Message Sept. 10, 1978): (“He (God) is our father; even more he is our mother.”), St. Anselm of Canterbury ("But you Jesus, good Lord, are you not also our mother? Are you not the mother who, like a hen, collects her chickens under her wings?”), Bernard of Clairvaux (“Do not let the roughness of our life frighten your tender years. If you feel the stings of temptation ... suck not so much the wounds as the breasts of the Crucified. He will be your mother, and you will be his son... [from Letter 322]), and Teresa of Avila (“For from those divine breasts where it seems God is always sustaining the soul, there flow streams of milk bringing comfort to all the people. [from The Interior Castle]) as well as St. Julian of Norwich have spent considerable time talking about Jesus in feminine imagery, an image used by Jesus himself when he said, “How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.” (Matt. 23:37).

The presiding bishop convenes and presides at meetings of the House of Bishops and the Executive Council, acts as chief consecrator of new bishops, and has constitutionally prescribed roles in overseeing the election and disciplining of bishops. The presiding bishop, designated as a spokesperson for the church and as primate, represents the church in gatherings of the Anglican Communion primates. The presiding bishop is required to visit every diocese during his or her term of office but has no actual power over dioceses or other bishops. The office has a number of administrative duties and is the closest thing to a CEO that The Episcopal Church has.

The Anglican Communion is not a church. It is a fellowship of 38 autonomous national/regional churches (“provinces”) and dioceses that are in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury. They express the Catholic and Apostolic faith through the Book of Common Prayer as authorized by each province of the Anglican Communion. The Communion is bound together not by a central legislative authority, but by mutual loyalty and common counsel. The Anglican Communion calls the chief bishop of each province its “primate,” although the actual title and duties of primates vary greatly. Organization of a formal fellowship of churches calling itself the Anglican Communion began in 1867. The Episcopal Church has been involved in the Communion since its beginning.

“Instruments of Unity” is a phrase that has been used frequently in recent debates in The Episcopal Church. This is a recent term for the four chief institutions through which members of the Anglican Communion consult and coordinate their work. The four are: the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference of bishops (which first met in 1867 and generally meets every 10 years), the Anglican Consultative Council (which first met in 1971 and is the only “instrument” to have bylaws approved by every Communion province and representation from clergy, laity, and bishops), and the Primates’ Meeting (which began in 1978 as a meeting for “leisurely thought, prayer, and deep consultation” among the primates).

The four were first grouped in the 1997 Virginia Report which preceded Lambeth 1998. In that report these entities were called “World-Wide Instruments of Communion” in a chapter discussing ideas that the bishops at Lambeth might choose to explore. The authors of the Windsor Report introduced the term “Instruments of Unity” for the first time in 2004.

None of the four groups has any legislative authority. Some groups have recently made proposals to transform these “instruments” (especially the Primates’ Meeting) into agencies with the power to intervene in and discipline individual provinces.

After failing to win votes at General Convention, the dissenters within The Episcopal Church have sought allies among the Anglican primates of developing nations to win international support against The Episcopal Church. They have submitted a series of petitions to which various Communion bodies and special commissions have responded. The most recent plea was a request to the Archbishop of Canterbury for a foreign primate to oversee certain dioceses and to exercise the duties of the presiding bishop for them – alternate primatial oversight. The dissenters have also encouraged their international allies to ignore provincial boundaries and to intervene in dioceses within The Episcopal Church.

Six dioceses, including Fort Worth, have asked the Archbishop of Canterbury to place them under the oversight of a foreign primate. In the combined petition submitted to the Archbishop of Canterbury in 2006, the dioceses listed all of the constitutionally and canonically defined roles of the presiding bishop as needing to be transferred to another primate. This request presents constitutional problems. The presiding bishop does not exercise “oversight” of dioceses and has no constitutional power to delegate his or her duties to others. Bishop Iker said in October 2007, “I can simply say we believe that the appeal for Alternative Primatial Oversight has been rejected.”

Since the primates became involved in the controversy within The Episcopal Church, they have issued statements or communiqués at the conclusion of their meetings, explaining their understanding of the current issues and offering recommendations for actions to ease tensions within the Communion. The most recent of these communiqués are from Dromantine, Ireland, in 2005, and in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in 2007.

The Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes (now referred to as the Anglican Communion Network) is a federation of dissenting Episcopalians, including Bishop Iker.

The ACN adopted its structural charter in early 2004. Its goal was to replace The Episcopal Church in the Anglican Communion or to gain admission to the Communion as an independent province. Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh serves as the ACN “moderator.” Ten dioceses (Albany, Central Florida, Dallas, Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, Quincy, Rio Grande, San Joaquin, South Carolina, and Springfield) eventually affiliated with the ACN. Parishes in non-ACN dioceses who wish to affiliate become members of one of several ACN convocations led by a “dean.” The ACN has acted as a shadow church, creating a relief agency for its own use (rather than employing Episcopal Relief and Development), its own pension program, and founding new missions unaffiliated with any Episcopal diocese. Any parish in the Diocese of Fort Worth may refuse membership in the ACN, and at least two parishes in the Diocese of Fort Worth have done so.

The Common Cause Partnership is a group of churches and organizations brought together by the ACN. It includes churches outside the Anglican Communion that split from The Episcopal Church, often many years ago, as well as more recent entities created through the intervention of foreign bishops. Bishops from these groups met in September 2007 to discuss creating more formal ties, in the hope of gaining status as a new church within the Communion.

The term “province” has two unrelated meanings. The Anglican Communion calls the national or regional churches that are Communion members “provinces.” For example, The Episcopal Church is in the province called The Episcopal Church in the USA.

In addition, within the Episcopal Church, “province” designates one of the nine regional groupings of dioceses first defined by church canons nearly a century ago. Provinces hold an annual synod, work on issues of ministry and mission, have representation on the Executive Council and other bodies, and play a role in the appeals process of church trials of clergy. The Diocese of Fort Worth is part of Province VII.

Church province? The 2006 diocesan convention passed a resolution purporting to withdraw its consent to be included in Province VII of The Episcopal Church. Despite this resolution, church canons continue to list Fort Worth as a diocese of Province VII, since only action of General Convention can remove Fort Worth from this list. Diocesan leaders have cited Missouri as an example of another diocese that sought to withdraw from its province. However, Missouri did not withdraw but merely stopped participating in its assigned province. What Missouri wanted to do was to transfer to a neighboring province within The Episcopal Church. It did so once General Convention added a transfer procedure to the canons.

No. The Episcopal Church has not changed its doctrine or beliefs. No statement of faith or belief has been altered by General Conventions in 2003 or 2006. In fact, as part of Resolution C052, General Convention 2003 affirmed “our life together as a community of faith is grounded in the saving work of Jesus Christ and expressed in the principles of the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral: Holy Scripture, the historic Creeds of the Church, the two dominical sacraments, and the historic episcopate.”

No. After more than a quarter-century of discussion, study, and listening, the church did change its canons to bar exclusion from any ministry based on sexual orientation. In 2000, General Convention approved a resolution (D039) acknowledging divisions on this topic and affirming that all relationships in or out of marriage should be marked by “monogamy, mutual affection and respect, careful, honest communication, and … holy love.” The church has discussed liturgies to bless same-sex unions, but it has not authorized the use of such a liturgy. Acknowledging disagreements, General Convention 2003 declared that those who wished to explore local liturgies could do so. Some bishops have permitted blessings under this local option, but The Episcopal Church, as a whole, has not yet spoken. In fact the recent meeting of the House of Bishops in New Orleans confirmed the General Convention decision, with its passage of B033, to withhold consent from any “candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion,” and even went farther by stating explicitly that this meant lesbian and gay Episcopalians.

No. The divisions over theology, sexuality, and the proper approach to scripture existed before Bishop Robinson was elected. Bishop Robert Duncan, Moderator of the ACN, has declared that the issue is not about sexuality. All sides of the discussion about sexuality cite to scriptural bases for their positions, but they interpret the scriptures differently.

The Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral is a statement first proposed and endorsed by the House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church in 1886 and adopted with minor changes in 1888 by the Lambeth Conference of Bishops. It contains four elements: Holy Scripture, the historic creeds of the Church, the two gospel sacraments (baptism and communion), and the historic episcopate. The text can be found in the “Historic Documents” section of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer (pp. 876–7). The Quadrilateral provides the closest thing we have to a statement of the core faith of those churches that are part of the Anglican Communion.

The “Global South” is a grouping of Anglican provinces, primarily in the developing countries of Africa, Asia, and South America. At its peak, as many as 15 of the 38 provinces were members of this group. The “Global South” has supported the claims and demands of dissenters in The Episcopal Church. The core membership of the group is found in the provinces of Nigeria, Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, Southeast Asia, Southern Cone (southern South America), and the West Indies.

No. The claim has been made that actions in 2003 were unconstitutional because they were contrary to the Preamble of the Constitution of The Episcopal Church. This preamble was proposed in 1964 and adopted in 1967 as part of a discussion about the name of the church. It includes a description of The Episcopal Church as a “constituent member” of the “fellowship” called the Anglican Communion. It does not subjugate the church to the Communion or obligate it to remain a member. The primates and the Windsor Report have both acknowledged that The Episcopal Church acted in accordance with the church’s own constitution and canons.

The Windsor Report was written by a special commission appointed in 2003 by the Archbishop of Canterbury at the request of the primates. The report — proposed as part of an ongoing conversation about dealing with conflict within the Communion — was issued in October 2004. Its authors clearly stated that they were setting out a process, not a judgment. It emphatically condemned the crossing of diocesan lines by bishops and asked The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada to express regret for actions that had “strained the fabric” of the Anglican Communion by – on the part of The Episcopal Church – agreeing to the election of an honestly gay man as the bishop of New Hampshire and acknowledging that some bishops allowed the blessing of same sex unions in their dioceses; and on the part of the Anglican Church of Canada, for authorizing the blessing of same sex unions. It asked The Episcopal Church and The Anglican Church of Canada to refrain from further consecrations of bishops in same-sex relationships and from authorizing rites for the blessing of same-sex unions. It also specifically asked primates of provinces not to interfere in provinces other than their own.

The dissenting minority in The Episcopal Church seek to transform certain parts of the Windsor Report into a checklist of requirements for being “Windsor compliant.” This checklist ignores parts of the report, however, such as the request for an end to violating the boundaries of The Episcopal Church. A group of bishops (“Windsor bishops”), including some who are not members of the ACN, met twice in 2006 and issued statements supporting the Windsor Report as the best way forward. The group has continued to meet occasionally, although its membership changes with each meeting. Bishop Iker calls himself a “Windsor bishop.”

General Convention 2006 passed a series of resolutions responding to the Windsor Report, including A159–Commitment to Interdependence in the Anglican Communion, A160–Expression of Regret (for straining the bonds of affection and not giving sufficient importance to the impact of our actions), A165–Commitment to Windsor and Listening Processes, A166–Anglican Covenant Development Process, and B033 (calling on diocesan standing committees and bishops “to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church …”).

A special committee appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury reported to the primates in Dar es Salaam in 2007 that The Episcopal Church had complied with the Windsor Report and Dromantine communiqué, although the committee wanted clarification on the blessing of same-sex unions. Archbishop Eames, of Ireland, who chaired the commission that drafted the Windsor Report, has also stated that The Episcopal Church has fully met the recommendations in that report.

No. The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada graciously agreed not to participate as voting members in the 2005 meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council as a means of showing their sensitivity to the concerns raised by other members of the Communion and honoring a request by the primates in their Dromantine communiqué. The ACC, by the narrowest of margins, approved that voluntary withdrawal from voting, which ends in 2008. The Episcopal Church participates in numerous committees and networks of the Anglican Communion, and our presiding bishop continues to participate in meetings of the primates. All of the current diocesan bishops of The Episcopal Church, except for Bishop Robinson, have been invited to Lambeth 2008. None of those consecrated by other provinces to serve as bishops inside the bounds of The Episcopal Church received invitations.

The Episcopal Church has long held the position that all church property is held in trust for the whole church by the diocese. Court cases supporting The Episcopal Church’s position date back to the nineteenth century. A court opinion in the mid 1970s in Georgia suggested that hierarchical churches should state explicitly their claims to the property of member units, rather than rely on a theory of implied trusteeship. In 1979 – prior to the founding of the Diocese of Fort Worth – The Episcopal Church added an explicit statement to its canons (Title I, Canon 7.4, also known as the “Dennis Canon”) specifying that all property is held by a diocese in trust for The Episcopal Church.

(Title I, Canon 7.4):
All real and personal property held by or for the benefit of any Parish, Mission or Congregation is held in trust for this Church and the Diocese thereof in which such Parish, Mission or Congregation is located. The existence of this trust, however, shall in no way limit the power and authority of the Parish, Mission or Congregation otherwise existing over such property so long as the particular Parish, Mission or Congregation remains a part of, and subject to, this Church and its Constitution and Canons.

The Dennis Canon is named after the attorney and later Suffragan Bishop of New York Walter Dennis, who drafted it. The Dennis Canon codifies the existing trust relationship the Episcopal Church has long had regarding property held by its parishes and dioceses. The parishes, through their vestries, are trustees of the property for the benefit of their local dioceses and the national Episcopal Church. The diocese holds the property in trust for the national church.

Vestry members – or convention delegates --therefore breache their fiduciary trust if they purport to transfer property to another ecclesiastical jurisdiction, such as another Province. In recent years, the Episcopal Church has been embroiled in a variety of theological disputes concerning its doctrine, discipline, and worship. Because of these disputes, groups of individuals, often supported by para-church organizations, have wished to leave the Episcopal Church bringing with them the property and assets owned by their congregations. State and federal appellate courts, however, have overwhelmingly recognized the legitimacy and applicability of the Dennis Canon and the existence of a trust relationship on behalf of Episcopal Church.

The Episcopal Church has never recognized a unilateral secession by a diocese. In 1861, nine dioceses organized as the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America. This secession was never recognized. The dioceses continued to be included 1862 and 1865. In 1865, two bishops from the CSA were welcomed back into the House of Bishops, and others returned in 1868. General Convention did not, however, recognize the actions of the Confederate group in forming a new diocese and consecrating a bishop for it. This refusal confirmed the position that the only legal governing body of the church was General Convention. While there are international dioceses that have left The Episcopal Church to become separate provinces, these departures were accomplished by only action of the General Convention, not unilaterally by the diocese.

Just as a diocese cannot leave The Episcopal Church, neither can parishes and congregations leave. Individuals are free to leave. If individuals wish to form a new congregation in some other jurisdiction, that is their right. The Episcopal Church will assert its legal right to endowments, buildings, and other property (such as vestments, communion silver, prayer books, and hymnals), so that that property may be used by any faithful remnant of that parish or by a new congregation within The Episcopal Church gathered in that location. Members of the vestry of a parish contemplating such a decision should be aware that individual vestry members in Episcopal churches are bound to “faithfully perform the duties of that office in accordance with the Constitution and Canons of this Church” (Canon I.17.8). Under Texas law they may have a high fiduciary duty to protect the assets of the parish and could be personally liable for violation of that duty.

The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth will continue to be part of The Episcopal Church, no matter what new entity Bishop Iker and his followers may attempt to create. If Bishop Iker and others choose to leave, the Presiding Bishop has authority under Canon 13 of the national canons to declare the “see” [the bishop’s seat] vacant and appoint a provisional bishop of another diocese or of a resigned bishop. This bishop could oversee the reorganization of the diocese and the eventual election of a new bishop.

Both parishes and the diocese will be smaller if some people choose to leave. In a few cases, congregations may need to call a new rector, but every parish remaining will continue to worship using the Book of Common Prayer.

If Bishop Iker and the new entity he forms tries to claim the property, The Episcopal Church has the authority to go to court to reclaim its property. In every case in which the church has done so, it has prevailed.

Parishes will remain members of Diocese and The Episcopal Church and, thus, will remain a part of the Anglican Communion. The Episcopal Church will continue to hold the Nicene and Apostles Creeds as its basic statements of faith, assert that scripture contains all things necessary for salvation, and celebrate the two gospel sacraments. The Episcopal Church, and all its dioceses and parishes, will continue to include a broad spectrum of interpretations and practice, from conservative to liberal, evangelical to Anglo-Catholic, which is part of its rich heritage.

This document was adapted, with permission, by Fort Worth Via Media from one produced by Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh. Questions have been rearranged and some information, especially information specific to Fort Worth, has been added.