Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh 
#109 4530 Wm Penn Hwy  Murrysville, PA 15668 USA

February 10, 2004
The Rev’d Brian Parker, Press Officer
The Archbishop of Armagh
[email protected]

Dear Rev’d Parker and Members of the Eames Commission:

We, who serve as executive leaders of Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh (PEP), are writing to you in witness to the situation of Episcopalians within the Diocese of Pittsburgh. As you know, leaders of this diocese have been key in developing the American Anglican Council (AAC) and the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes (NACDP) as proposed replacements for the ECUSA. In response, PEP has joined with other Episcopalians who wish to maintain the traditional Anglican via media but are in dioceses whose bishops have been active in the AAC. Our membership includes both supporters and opponents of the decision to consecrate the Rev. Canon V. Gene Robinson as a bishop. We believe that the AAC’s and the NACDP’s actions, not those of the ECUSA or the Anglican Church of Canada, threaten the integrity of our provinces and of the entire Communion.

We would like now to address, in order, the commission’s eight questions:

1-2: Neither decision has any legal implications or threatens core doctrines. Each was taken according to the canons and constitution of the respective province after long, open, and prayerful discussion and debate, and with a majority in favor. Each was generous toward the opposition. The NACDP, by contrast, threatens both governance as well as the core of our faith. On Tuesday, February 3, 2004, Pittsburgh’s Diocesan Council voted, 16-4, to join this diocese to the NACDP. This was done without parochial advice or consent, without Standing Committee or convention authorization, without debate on the NACDP’s charter or theological statement—which significantly narrow Anglican and Episcopalian theological understandings—and without regard for dissenters.

3-4: The legal autonomy of each Anglican province is, and ought to remain, inviolable. The Communion is bound by mutual tolerance, respect and support, not coercion, and has long allowed local variations in practical and liturgical matters not affecting core doctrines of the faith, so that the church may witness effectually in each society and culture where it is present. The Communion is strengthened, not impaired, by such variations and mutuality. It is only impaired or broken when certain provinces, for reasons of their own, cannot abide certain pastorally necessary and legally established practices in others.

5-6: Alternative Episcopal Oversight (AEO) is repugnant to the core values of the Communion. Any provision for AEO should: (1) acknowledge that AEO signals that charity has failed and church unity is breached; (2) sanction AEO in only the most extraordinary circumstances; (3) permit AEO only during a reconciliation process between a parish and its bishop; and (4) reaffirm that AEO shall respect provincial and diocesan integrity and comply fully with applicable canon law. However, we believe that any AEO will actually exacerbate the impaired communion it is meant to redress. In Pittsburgh, AEO will make it difficult for parishes to maintain a traditional via media position welcoming to all. For instance, the AAC’s and NACDP’s insistence that a parish be able to redirect its financial support to the diocese providing oversight effectively transfers the parish out of its own diocese. The result here will be to pack the diocese with distant parishes unable to participate in diocesan life, but able to distort diocesan votes. The segregation by belief that AEO fosters would also halt interactions between parishes within a diocese that do not agree on everything, but nonetheless share in ministry. These interactions are very effective in breaking down misunderstanding and fear, and in maintaining the via media we cherish.

7-8: We believe that the Archbishop of Canterbury should consider the extraordinary power of episcope only when no other option is left to maintain the integrity of the Communion, as when one province intervenes in the life of another, or when a province’s governance is severely compromised. For example, it would be appropriate for the Archbishop to call for censure or disciplinary action against those African bishops currently offering oversight of breakaway parishes in the United States and Canada either through the Anglican Mission in America, or independent of it. These actions are truly destructive of fellowship and breach the integrity of each province involved. Even NACDP dioceses have felt such incursions. A Ugandan bishop, for example, has even claimed oversight of a group in the Diocese of Pittsburgh.

Thank you for allowing us to address you on this matter. Our prayers are with you during this difficult time.

In Christ,

Lionel Deimel, Ph.D., President
Joan Gundersen, Ph.D., Vice President for Policy and Planning
Christopher Wilkins, Ph.D., Vice President for Operations
Rachel Nicholson, Esq., Strategy Committee Chair

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Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh        #109 4530 Wm Penn Hwy        Murrysville, PA 15668