Returning to Connor diocese and the Belfast area, Bishop Harper moved to be incumbent of Malone from 1986-2002.

From 1999-2002 he was also Archdeacon of Connor and Precentor of St Anne's Cathedral, Belfast.

Bishop Harper's long-standing interest in archaeology and history led him to be appointed Chairman of the Historic Monuments Council for Northern Ireland from 1986-1995. In 1996 he was appointed an OBE for Services to Conservation in Northern Ireland.

For now I want you to be aware of this development and to know that I'll be meeting with our vestry in a special session both to pray together and to consider our next steps.

The core issue in why we left is not women's leadership. It is not "Episcopalians against equality," as the headline on a recent Post op-ed by Harold Meyerson put it.

It is not a "leftward" drift in the church. It is not even primarily ethical -- though the ordination of a practicing homosexual as bishop was the flash point that showed how far the repudiation of Christian orthodoxy had gone.

It is a lovely church that welcomes people of all denominations, or no denomination in my case. It is a church that sends folks to build houses in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, that recently broke ground on a community building in urban, Southeast D.C. for ministry there, that brings children from other countries to America for complex cardiac surgeries they can't get at home, that sends missionaries beyond its walls, and that serves thousands of people within them.