The two churches will affiliate with the Anglican District of Virginia, an association of Virginia churches who are joining together to realign traditional Anglicans in Virginia.

Virginia Bishop Peter James Lee says he has not approved the (protocol) departures of the two Virginia parishes, so there will probably be litigation in the works over millions of dollars worth of property in the next few months. It all depends on whether the document both sides signed will be recognized by the courts. Time will tell.

Earlier this month another Virginia parish, All Saints' Church, Dale City also departed from the diocese and announced that it had reached an agreement over property issues with the diocese and hooked up with the Diocese of North Kigezi in the Anglican Church of Uganda.

Next door, in the Diocese of Washington, a parish, All Saints' Chevy Chase, Md. under the Rev. Al Zadiq, an evangelical, took an equally bold move and decided to choose an orthodox American bishop, the retiring Bishop of South Carolina, the Rt. Rev. Ed Salmon to provide them with oversight. Unlike Bishop Peter James Lee, this got the approval of Washington Bishop John Chane because it was done differently, brokered in by a number of people, including former ABC George Carey who pops in and out of the parish on a regular basis.

Clearly they thought it more prudent to choose an orthodox American bishop rather than risk a legal dogfight with Bishop Chane by choosing a Nigerian, Ugandan or Bolivian archbishop or bishop. No doubt memories of what happened when Jane Dixon the former Washington bishop persecuted the Rev. Sam Edwards, of Christ Church, Accokeek played a role. She soaked the Washington-based Soper Fund to the tune of nearly $1 million dollars to get rid of Fr. Edwards. The parish is still in the diocese, Edwards has gone, Dixon has gone, but the parish can, at least, choose who they will have to lead them. Those sordid embarrassing days by that bishop will not soon be forgotten. Furthermore Chane had to cut a deal with All Saints' because the diocese would be bankrupt without the Soper Fund to keep it afloat, and he did not want to see precious resources wasted on attorneys. It was a win-win for everybody.

But the question that must be asked is this; where is it all going? With the plethora of churches leaving The Episcopal Church and joining the AMIA, and provinces and dioceses in Uganda, Peru, Southern Cone, Nigeria, Bolivia, Rwanda, et al (one must also add the 53 Continuing Churches that existed before the more recent exodus began) what now, what next?

There are still hundreds of orthodox parish priests who are still not willing to leave The Episcopal Church because they are in orthodox dioceses like South Carolina, Central Florida, Ft. Worth and Quincy and who feel no pressure to do so. There have been some orthodox parishes here and there that have left, pleading that decisions by the national church, namely the consecration of an openly homoerotic bishop, make it impossible for them any longer to stay.

But orthodox priests caught in revisionist dioceses are weighing their options, or playing for time because they don't want to become just another continuer with possibly no future in the Anglican Communion and no connection with something bigger than the next small outside continuing Anglican Church body. They don't want to risk being on the outside of the Anglican Communion, looking in. Those fears are understandable.

Another angle on all this is orthodox parishes trying to leave with their properties and hope they can win in the courts, a risky plan, and so many just hunker down and do nothing. This has two consequences. The first is that after a time they get fits of conscience about being in league with openly unbelieving bishops, and/or their orthodox parishioners won't stay because they, not the priest, believe they can no longer stay in an apostate church that has strayed so far from the gospel as to make ecclesiastical separation a necessity. The poor orthodox parish priest loses both ways. He can't or won't leave but his parishioners will, and sometimes they can force his hand if the group leaving is big enough.

Another option is that the priest steadfastly refuses to get involved with church politics, does not tell his/her congregation what is going on (Episcopal Life will safely not enlighten them) and he hopes and prays that the parish can ride out the storm. The usual refrain I hear is; "I don't care what goes on in the diocese or the national church, my business is here with my 'sheep', so leave me alone."

That begs the question of just how long can one keep one's head in the sand before someone builds a sandcastle over it and a large tidal wave finishes one off.

Then there is the real possibility that a whole diocese will up and leave. The Diocese of San Joaquin might just do that if the votes go that way in December. If that happens they will seek ecclesiastical sanctuary with the Southern Cone. At that point we will have a completely new paradigm. It is also an extremely risky legal move by this godly bishop that will bring down the wrath of David Booth Beers, but clearly that is not worrying the good bishop of San Joaquin. It also begs the question how much the National Church can interfere in the life of a diocese.

What will the other seven dioceses that have asked for "commissary" status (no longer Alternative Pastoral Oversight) do? What will become of Common Cause? Will V. Gene Robinson be invited to Lambeth 2008? Will Mrs. Schori get an invitation? Many questions, few answers. What is going through Dr. Rowan Williams mind as he sees all these parishes and priests flying off in multitudinous directions? What is he thinking, while all this is playing out? Does he pray for resolution of the growing number of civil lawsuits being filed? Orthodox dioceses like Recife, (Brazil) on the other hand, ask why is the Panel of Reference impotent in their hour of need.

Will Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan continue to say, as he does, that it is they, the revisionists, who have left the church not us, and we are staying put, that it is the liberals who need to repent and return, not them? But of course that is not happening and never will. It belies the facts that it is the liberals and revisionists who are staying put and the orthodox that are leaving! There is only one single instance of a liberal parish in an orthodox diocese applying for DEPO. Their reasoning is that if the orthodox flee the liberals can then turn around and claim the remaining if not all the properties, believing as they do that they have the Dennis Canon behind them and pots of money from Trust Funds of the National Church to assist them legally.

For most of the country that is true except for the State of California where parishes are solidly winning in the courts. But one state, even with six dioceses, is not a major win for the orthodox. For a real win to occur the Dennis Canon would need to be overturned in every state and that is simply not happening.

How long will everything sit in legal limbo with parishes leaving dioceses, and dioceses suing to get back the properties parishes then hiring lawyers and firing back with counter charges, and dioceses firing back with newer charges? Add inhibitions and depositions to the pot and the whole stew starts to look like even crazier. And on and on it goes. The balkanization of The Episcopal Church is now a reality, and the truth is Mrs. Schori who is living on another planet, or perhaps on a plain with Sufi Rumi, bleating about Millennium Development Goals is totally out of touch with the every day world of orthodox survival.

But her first wake up call as to the reality of the unfolding TEC drama comes with a Presentment now sitting on her desk requesting that she and the Title IV Review Committee throw out the venal, sociopath Bishop of Pennsylvania, Charles E. Bennison. Perhaps when she reads how he has squandered money and nearly bankrupted the diocese and is therefore not worthy to run a diocese, reality will hit her like a sledgehammer in a prison quarry. She will also read the report of Bishop Clayton Matthews, Frank Griswold's consigliore for bad boy bishops, with newspaper and Internet reports that Bennison covered up his brother's statutory rape; and has lost the trust of just about everyone in the diocese including his base liberals, that she will do something courageous for the Diocese of Pennsylvania its priests and people. For one, hopefully, shiny extended moment MDG's will take the backburner and she will face the stark reality that the TEC is coming unglued and it has taken a John-David Schofield at one end of the spectrum and a Charles E. Bennison at the other end, for the penny to finally drop.

END