In the 400+ year old Anglican communion, the bishop (and thus the diocese) is the key institutional actor. Unlike the Roman Catholic Church, there is no strong central authority. And while the national leader (in the US, the Presiding Bishop) has the authority to administer the national HQ, he/she has no canonical authority to determine what happens in a given diocese or parish.

Historically, American church worship (and the law’s recognition of same) has been bottom-up, in which individual parishes organize, buy land, and then form a parish. (The RCC and a few other denominations are notable exceptions). Some may get loans from a church-affiliated entity, but those loans must be paid off after a fixed period of time.

So the question is, how is the property titled? The land is normally titled by the parish or by the diocese, at least until next year when the PB plans to change the law to title all property to the national church.

Finally, the Episcopal Church in the United State of America (ECUSA) was formed in the 18th century as a democratic reaction to the hierarchical, top-down, Church of England. Everyone and every issue was decided by a bottom-up process of voting. Bishop Duncan was selected by a vote of his diocese, not by the national church.

Having a parish or diocese vote to secede is consistent with that. So the analogy is not Brazil, but the Civil War.

ECUSA is going through a Civil War, and the one nearly 150 years ago was resolved by rifles, not by press releases or lawsuits.

If a court of competent jurisdiction determines that the Diocese (as a legal entity) owns title to the parish land within its territory, it doesn’t matter what the PB or the ECUSA leadership think. The national church will certainly want to form a new franchise within the territory, but (absent title to the land) it lacks authority to do anything to the former franchisees.

The situation is, as suggested in this essay, muddled. It is as if the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania had voted to leave the United States and to join, say Brazil. If the governor and all the members of the General Assembly who had voted for the measure claim to be citizens of Brazil, where is Pennsylvania and who is running it? The answer, of course, is that Pennsylvania is in the United States because the state government was not competent to do what it claims to have done. I assume that the lieutenant governor would be running the state.

In the diocese, the convention passed illegal legislation, and 7 of 8 members of the Standing Committee (which was running the diocese) claimed to have defected to the Southern Cone. Therefore, the eighth member of the Standing Committee, who remained loyal to The Episcopal Church, like the lieutenant governor in my example, must be the legitimate authority running the (real) Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh in The Episcopal Church.

Case closed.

The “realigners” have not really formed a diocese and, by its own canons, cannot have been admitted to the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone. They are merely arrogant thieves who have no right to the assets they currently control.