Lawrence said there is no turning back, but there is still one huge non-theological elephant in the room: the valuable Lowcountry church properties that dot the landscape. Lawrence has said the congregations that want to leave the diocese are free to leave with properties intact.

South Carolina Episcopalians are headed for a painful split now that a majority of Lowcountry Episcopalians have sided with an emboldened Bishop Mark Lawrence in his standoff with, in Lawrence’s view, an increasing liberal and theologically-wobbly national church.

But questions remain about Lawrence’s authority to engineer a secession of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina from the Episcopal Church, which was approved by a majority of delegates Saturday at a special convention called by Lawrence in Charleston.

At issue, too, is the status of those Lowcountry Episcopalians who don’t agree with Lawrence’s decision to disassociate. At least 12 congregations among the 75 in the Lowcountry diocese have expressed a desire to remain with the American church, which is part of the worldwide Anglican Communion.

Bishop W. Andrew Waldo, the head of the Episcopal Diocese of Upper South Carolina, had hoped to avert this moment. Over the past few months, he has remained in conversation with his fellow South Carolina bishop, a man with whom he shares a rich friendship.

“I’ve known from the beginning before I was elected that the tensions between the Diocese of South Carolina and the Episcopal Church were many,” Waldo said Tuesday. “I always believed creative solutions were possible and, frankly, I don’t rule out creative solutions.” But he acknowledged “the window of opportunity has narrowed.”
With Saturday’s vote and Lawrence’s restriction by the national church, “We are in a time of immense canonical ambiguity and lack of clarity about what the next steps are going to be,” Waldo said.

Waldo had urged the national church to continue dialogue with Lawrence, who has been outspoken in his opposition to the ordination of gay and lesbian bishops as well as the church’s move to bless same-sex unions. But leaders in the national church, including its presiding bishop, the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, apparently had reached a breaking point.

In September, the church’s 18-member Disciplinary Board found Lawrence had abandoned the communion of the church, not for his stance on homosexuality but for his endorsement of actions that gave the diocese authority to challenge the national church on issues of discipline and prepare for a takeover of the diocese, including Episcopal parish properties that aligned with him. Episcopal canons hold that each parish holds its property in trust for the diocese and the Episcopal Church.

On Oct. 15, Jefferts Schori notified Lawrence of the Disciplinary Board’s decision and his restriction as a bishop.

Since then, Lawrence has not acted as a bishop under restriction; instead he has seemed enlivened by supporters who are willing to leave the church with him.
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