Ed Stannard, writing for the New Haven Register reports that eight Episcopal parishes in New Haven have been engaged in talks at the diocesan offices in Meriden, about their future. "We have until Dec. 4 to resolve several issues that we have to address," said Lou Campbell, senior warden of St. Andrew's. These include "a deficit that accumulated over many, many years ... and also we don't have a priest so we have to start moving toward getting a priest."

St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Newhallville, is confronting questions about its very existence, but it is not alone.

St. Andrew's last pastor, the Rev. Tracy Johnson Russell, left in December, 2014, to take a position with St. Monica's Episcopal Church in Hartford.

Since then, the parish has been hiring priests on a week-to-week basis, or holding Morning Prayer on Sundays, which doesn't require a priest to lead the service. Campbell, who said St. Andrew's has had seven or eight priests since he joined the parish in 1968, said the parish would be looking for a part-time pastor.

The main problem with "dwindling parish membership," has been paying both the priest's health benefits and property insurance. The parish also had to spend precious funds to bring its property up to code.

The consequences of not becoming financially stable and not being able to support a priest would mean that the parish would have to close or at least sell its property on Shelton Avenue, which includes the church and a large parish hall. "We can continue as a parish with the proceeds of the sale," Campbell said.

The parish will meet June 12 to try to come up with a plan to present to the diocese in December, he said. "I think this is an opportunity for us to get some clarity and have a timeline to address the problem rather than kicking it down the road."

"The diocese will be doing what they have to do to start the process ... and really assisting us in whatever we decide, but it is a decision that the parish has to make."

Teddi Glover married her husband, Arthur, at St. Andrew's, in 1948 (his family had been members for years before). She said the parish wants to save the church, which has been a mainstay in Newhallville, but admits the parish has grown older and smaller.

"We have not been able to get the young group involved in the church like we had been," she said.

Stannard reports that the other parishes are St. James' on East Grand Avenue, St. John's on Orange Street, St. Luke's on Whalley Avenue, and St. Paul and St. James on Olive Street.

It's possible that number will shrink, although merging with another parish is "the hardest to do," Bishop Douglas said. Each has a distinct ministry, making combining more difficult to contemplate. For example, St. Thomas's operates a school, St. Luke's serves a large West Indian community, and St. James' has a band that plays in the community as well as at services. (The Episcopal Church at Yale, which has an independent board and a new chaplain, is "happy to participate in the conversation," Douglas said.) Some parishes might choose to go out of business rather than be renewed in the Easter experience. But that's the choice," he said.

Susan Yates is warden at St. Paul and St. James in the Wooster Square neighborhood, which also runs the Loaves and Fishes food pantry and clothes closet. She said the conversations among the parishes is "an exciting one because we all have big old buildings that are hard to heat and congregations that are not as big as at the turn of the [20th] century or at mid-century, 1950."

The members of "St. PJ's," as it's known, "are in a discernment process to see if they can repurpose part of their building," using the church's large parish hall as "housing for the elderly or low-income housing," Yates said.

"We're looking at whether it's economically feasible, whether it's something people are willing to put time and energy into," she said. The parish has been led by a temporary priest since the Rev. Alex Dyer left to become interim rector of Old St. Andrew's Church in Bloomfield.

Yates said she would be "very, very sad" if St. PJ's closed. The Rev. Barbara Cheney, priest-in-charge of St. James (and former rector of St. PJ's), which serves Fair Haven and Fair Haven Heights, said of the city's Episcopal churches, "All are having economic problems in one fashion or another ... Nobody is feeling absolutely comfortable economically and several of us are determining whether we have a future or not, whether it's a storefront or part of our building gets sold."

St. James, which at one time had a large Latino population, is "trying to get past survival, because that church has clearly been challenged," Cheney said. The previous priest left to start an evangelical parish, taking many of the Hispanic members with him. Now, about half the parish is from the neighborhood, with others coming from as far as Woodbridge and Cheshire, Cheney said.

"So with all these changes, that's a very opportune time to ask the question ... Who are we, where are we going and how do we want to be the church in that city?" Douglas said.

Douglas "keeps using the word 'experiment.' Just try something on, just try it on and think of it as an experiment."

The old model of "eight independent parishes sailing alone is not going to be of the future," Douglas said. But he said it will be up to the parishes to decide how to move forward.

The diocese has been on a steady decline since 2011, when Douglas announced the sale of the diocesan house, the reduction of his diocesan budget by $600,000, and the firing of six staff members at Church House. The number of clergy serving full time in parish positions across the diocese has declined in the last five years from 180 positions to 123, and is rapidly sinking.

Diocesan History of Ecclesiastical Violence

But the diocese has a history of hatred of orthodox parishes that were once the theological and financial backbone and mainstay of the diocese.

During the reign of Bishop Andrew Smith, six parishes that became known as "The Connecticut Six", sought to leave the diocese following the consecration of Gene Robinson, an openly non-celibate, homosexual bishop. It tore the diocese apart, involving, at one point, even the Archbishop of Canterbury. The diocese became embroiled in lawsuits which slowly emptied their coffers.

Bishop Smith "pruned" "The Connecticut Six", the most prosperous and orthodox parishes, as they were called. He cut off their spiritual life and financial supply line to the diocese. At that time (2005), "TheConnecticut Six" put out a statement accusing Bishop Smith of abandonment of orthodox Anglican faith and order, and continued harassment of faithful clergy and congregations in Connecticut.

The orthodox priests wrote to the diocese saying that the core of their disagreements with Bishop Smith involved the most basic issues of theology and Christian teaching. Since Andrew Smith became diocesan bishop in October 1999, he has expressed theology that exhibits a marked departure from Scripture truth and Anglican teaching. By word and action he has challenged essentials of faith including the nature of revelation, the person and work of Jesus, the authority of Scripture, and human sexuality. In June 2003, he ordained two non-celibate homosexuals to the diaconate. At General Convention 2003, he voted to confirm the election of V. Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire; voted for approval of the blessing of same-sex unions; and voted against a resolution upholding the authority of Scripture. Despite the protest of numerous clergy and lay people of Connecticut, and in the face of warnings by the Primates, Bishop Smith and his two suffragan bishops participated in the consecration of Gene Robinson in November 2003.

They blatantly accused Smith of fostering policies which effectively excluded from ordination all who followed traditional, catholic teaching on human sexuality and attempted to force congregations to conform to his unbiblical theology during the process of clergy succession.

By the time Douglas took over as the 15th Episcopal Bishop, in April 2010, the diocese was in free fall. Two orthodox parishes still remained "faithful" to the diocese - St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Darien, a large, nationally recognized evangelical charismatic parish led by the Rev. Christopher P. Leighton (now retired), and Bishop Seabury in Groton, the largest parish in actual attendance in the diocese and the 300th largest in TEC (out of 7,500 parishes), led by the Rev. Ron Gauss, a Jewish convert to Christianity.

A long bitter legal battle ensued over Seabury and the bishop prevailed, but the cost has been enormous to the diocese in lost souls, no income, and a great priest deposed. The large parish property of Bishop Seabury was sold by the diocese in a short sale of the property to a fundamental Baptist Church, and although Bishop Seabury, Groton no longer exists, Bishop Seabury Anglican thrives as an CANA/ACNA parish in Gales Ferry, Ct.

The chickens have come home to roost for Bishop Douglas.

With the departure of his flagship orthodox parishes, the steady encroachment of the newly formed Anglican Church in North America which Douglas hates, the die has been cast over the diocese's long term future. Small liberal parishes are dying off, and these numbers will only accelerate over time.

Thomas C. Reeves in his book, The Empty Church: The Suicide of Liberal Christianity said this: "The first and most critical step in halting the slide of the mainline churches is the restoration of their commitment to orthodox theology. Everything else depends on that." For Bishop Douglas, whose theological views are far from orthodox, it is all too late.

CORRECTION: Bishop Seabury parish was sold by the Diocese in a short sale of the property to a fundamental Baptist Church, and although Bishop Seabury, Groton no longer exists, Bishop Seabury Anglican thrives as an CANA/ACNA parish in Gales Ferry, Ct.

Mr. Stannard's story is posted as a link here: http://tinyurl.com/jxphbut