VANCOUVER: PRIESTS TO FIGHT 'EVICTION NOTICES'

By Ethan Baron, Staff Reporter

Vancouver Province Newspaper

Two Anglican priests have vowed to fight "eviction" from their West Coast churches, as the battle over same-sex unions heats up.

Rev. Barclay Mayo and Rev. Ed Hird notified Bishop Michael Ingham in March that they were severing their ties to the New Westminster Diocese and the Anglican Church of Canada.

Now, Ingham has sent the priests letters they call "eviction notices".

"I would invite you to seek out alternative worship space for those whom you lead," Ingham said in his letters dated June 23.

"He's invoking Canon 15 on us," said Mayo of Christ the Redeemer Anglican Church in Pender Harbour, on the Sunshine Coast. "It's a diocesan regulation that allows a bishop to take over a parish if, in his own opinion, it's not running properly."

"This is all vindictiveness. He will probably have to go to court. We're expecting a fairly significant fight."

The two priests, who say they have unanimous support from their congregations, broke from the diocese because it approved the blessing of same-sex unions. They put themselves under an Anglican Province in Africa.

"We are now a missionary arm of the Church of Rwanda," said Hird of St. Simon's Anglican Church in Deep Cove.

Ingham rejected the priests' authority to make the move.

"Parishioners may choose to leave the Anglican Church of Canada and worship elsewhere, but a parish may not 'leave' a diocese nor declare that it is no longer part of the Anglican Church of Canada," Ingham wrote.

Mayo contends that although the diocese holds title to his church and land, his congregation paid for the building and property.

"We own it, not them," Mayo said.

Hird said St. Simon's holds title to the church and land. "The people of St. Simon's have no intention of going anywhere," Hird said.

Ingham was unavailable for comment.