BISHOP OF SPLINTER FACTION CONDUCTS SERVICE IN LIGONIER EPISCOPAL CHURCH

By Steve Levin Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Tuesday, May 11, 2004

A confirmation ceremony Sunday in Ligonier of 13 adults by a retired bishop of a splinter Episcopal group was a historical first for the denomination.

The Rt. Rev. Daniel G. Cox of the Reformed Episcopal Church performed the confirmation after receiving permission from the church's rector and from the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, the Rt. Rev. Robert W. Duncan Jr.

The service at St. Michael's in the Valley unsettled some members of the Pittsburgh Diocese, who believed -- wrongly -- that it violated canon law of the 2.3 million-member Episcopal Church USA.

Attorney Charles B. Jarrett Jr., former chancellor of the Pittsburgh diocese, said that Cox's ordination and Duncan's permission for him to perform a sacramental act satisfy church law. Duncan is out of the country and the diocese's assistant bishop was presiding at another confirmation Sunday.

But not everyone was happy about it.

"We are certainly not in full communion with the [Reformed Episcopal Church] and so I do not believe it is appropriate for one of their bishops to confirm," said the Rt. Rev. C. Christopher Epting, the national church's deputy officer of ecumenical and interfaith relations.

"That is not the way we do ecumenical work."

The Reformed Episcopal Church split from the larger church in 1873 over scriptural issues. It has a U.S. membership of about 14,000.

Les Fairfield, a professor of church history at Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry in Ambridge, said it was the first time such a "distant" member of the greater Anglican family had conducted a sacramental service in the Episcopal Church.

The Rev. Jim Simons, rector of St. Michael's in the Valley, wasn't sure such "an esoteric historic moment" was worth any extra attention. "They're not going to make a stamp about it," he said.