FAIRFAX, Va. – Two of the most prominent and largest Episcopal parishes in Virginia voted overwhelmingly Sunday to leave The Episcopal Church and join fellow Anglican conservatives forming a rival denomination in the U.S.
Truro Church in Fairfax and The Falls Church in Falls Church plan to place themselves under the leadership of Anglican Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, who has called the growing acceptance of gay relationships a “satanic attack” on the church.
Truro rector Martyn Minns was consecrated as a bishop by the Church of Nigeria earlier this year to lead Akinola’s Convocation of Anglicans in North America.
“This has been our spiritual home, so separating is very hard,” Minns said at a news conference announcing the parishes’ decision. “There’s also the promise of a new day. A burden is being lifted. There are new possibilities breaking through.”
Four other small Virginia parishes have also left, five more voted to break away Sunday and three more will decide soon whether to follow suit, according to parish leaders.
None is as eminent as Truro and Falls Church, however. The parishes together claim more than 4,000 members. A lengthy and expensive legal fight could erupt over the two properties, which are worth millions of dollars.
The Episcopal Church, the U.S. wing of the global Anglican Communion, has been under pressure from traditionalists at home and abroad since the 2003 consecration of the first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.
Nationally, Episcopal researchers estimate that at least one-third of the nearly 115,000 people who left the denomination from 2003 to 2005 did so because of parish conflicts over Robinson.
Seven of the 100 U.S. Episcopal dioceses have threatened to break from the denomination, but have so far stayed put.
Struggling to hold the 77 million-member Anglican Communion together, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the Anglican spiritual leader, has said that the communion may have to create a two-tier system of membership, with branches that ordain partnered gays given a lesser status.
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