It was a move that took everybody by surprise, except an inner circle of friends, but the implications of his departure are devastating not only on the diocese but nationally.

For the Rev. Eric D. Dudley the reasons were obvious, the choices few: an unrepentant church that he saw no chance of changing; disillusionment with his own bishop John Howard; and no hope for the future for an orthodox rector or bishop in the Episcopal Church.

Thems fightin' words.

Dudley, of course, is not the first to bid farewell to The Episcopal Church, and he certainly won't be the last. More than a dozen evangelical churches are waiting in the wings in the Diocese of Florida, biding their time, waiting for the right moment to strike out on their own. Timing is everything. The recently formed Anglican Alliance of North Florida, a covey of orthodox Episcopal parishes, should send shivers down Howard's spine.

But because of the size of his congregation (and the size of the others that anticipate leaving), Dudley's action could be viewed as the beginning of a second great wave of departures that began in the Year 2,000 with the formation of the Anglican Mission in America (AMIA).

And it is interesting to note that they are not waiting for GC2006 before making the decision to leave. They believe that the next General Convention will change nothing; that the revisionist agenda will continue to roll along unstoppable by any force on earth and/or in hell. It's a done deal, the revisionists have stolen the Episcopal Church and now there is no real reason to stay.

The Episcopal Church has a different understanding of what mission is, who should be running the church, fundamentally different views on what is morality and theology, how to read the Bible, with talk of inclusion rather than transformation and so much more. For Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholic clergy caught in revisionist dioceses the options get fewer by the day.

The first option is to stay and to operate as far under the radar screen of revisionist bishops as possible. That option, however, is fading fast. Revisionist bishops like Bennison and Howard see orthodox parishes as fertile soil for more money to support their agenda not those of these orthodox parishes, and this, sooner or later, sticks in the craw of faithful believing Episcopalians and they leave often with their rector in tow. One new little sleight of hand by revisionist bishops is to make giving to the diocese no longer voluntary but mandatory and hit the larger parishes with higher percentage rates. (Bennison is trying that on in the Diocese of Pennsylvania.)

The second option is to leave, walk away from the buildings and check book and take anywhere from 70 percent to 90 percent of the congregation with them and wait for the bishop to inhibit and depose the priest.

A third option is to stay and fight for the parish and when the bishop uses the wrong canon to get rid of the priest fight back with every legal option in the book. This has proven successful in California, in the Diocese of Los Angeles, where a parish has kept its property based on state laws (even winning money for the legal case from the diocese), and (so far) in the Diocese of Pennsylvania where Bishop Bennison has been unsuccessful in unseating the Rt. Rev. David L. Moyer from his parish in Rosemont, PA.

There are small but growing victories everywhere.

Six powerful parishes in the Diocese of Connecticut have filed a lawsuit against the Bishop Andrew Smith and this too will be repeated around the country as orthodox priests and parishes develop stiffer spines to fight these revisionist bishops and sue them in the courts to get the justice being denied them from the mockery of what passes for justice in the ecclesiastical court system in the Episcopal Church.

Fr. Dudley's departure is significant for a number of reasons. He and his congregation were fully prepared, they understood the consequences of their actions (he doesn't give a damn if he is inhibited and deposed) and he will take most of the congregation and staff with him. He will start again and within a year be bigger and better than ever. That is nearly always the way it happens. God honors those who honor Him.

Size is almost everything. Fr. Dudley's taking somewhere between 1,200 to 1,500 dues paying Episcopalians is the equivalent (by church annual standards) of more than 15 to 20 small churches anywhere in the US and the loss to Howard's coffers will be significant. (Some of his six-figure-salaried staff might just feel the pinch.)

Now Howard has boasted about his diocese's being the premier diocese in the nation and much more, but on Sunday he got a wake-up call. Surprise, surprise, the vast majority of the second largest congregation in the whole diocese simply upped and left. And over the next year or so a dozen more could do the same! It may not be Howard's end, but it is a humiliating kick in the backside that will only get more painful with more kicks, in time.

Fr. Dudley has been a big player in the Episcopal Church. He belongs to an exclusive club of "large rectors" (and we are not talking body size) of men that meet in January every year in Florida. This orthodox group of rectors is so exclusive that no one knows where exactly they meet, who they are and certainly no bishops are invited. But one of the rules is you have to have a church of a 1,000 or more. They talk, pray, read the Scriptures and share stories. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that what they have been talking about of late is the state of the ECUSA and what they each plan to do about it. Well Fr. Dudley has just given us a clue and shone a light on that one and he has gone. Will others follow? We wait and see.

When I spoke to Fr. Dudley about his leaving he dropped an interesting news item. In a stunning revelation, he told VirtueOnline that he has talked with at least 50 priests across the country, and at least 15 in the Diocese of Florida, all of whom plan to do the same thing that he has done. "They all have a similar agenda but they are on different timetables," he said. He went on to say that we will begin to see a mass exodus from the Episcopal Church now until after the next General Convention next year.

Now if that doesn't send shivers down the spine of John Howard and every revisionist ECUSA bishop, what will?

These are the largest most heavily endowed churches in America, and even if the bishops gets their hands on the buildings, endowment and check book, all that money will run out within a short space of time because there is no one left to replenish the bank account.

Just ask Bishop Wallis Ohl of Northwest Texas, who is pleading for money in one time offerings from a diocese in free fall. He blamed it on two departing orthodox parishes, but that was not true. He admitted the diocese was in a difficult financial condition. "Not only are we in a cash "crunch" for the present, it appears that, without help from individual members of the diocese, our situation will continue to deteriorate," he recently told the diocese.

When the orthodox, who know how to make churches grow, leave, they leave gaping holes these revisionist bishops can never fill. These bishops have no gospel to proclaim with some of them outwardly and unreservedly hating orthodox Christians, while they are simultaneously being mocked in the media for having gay clergy and now a gay bishop for goodness sake. God will not be mocked, even if the Episcopal Church is.

If the huge numbers of Episcopalians keep leaving (and there is a finite number of sodomites coming into the ECUSA, most by now belong to the Metropolitan Community Church) then all the finest buildings, endowments and liberal clergy coming from liberal seminaries, cannot and will not, fill them. Furthermore if evangelical graduates from Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry continue being denied access to certain dioceses, these dioceses are signing their own death warrants.

The next few months, till GC2006, will probably be the most interesting months in the history of the Episcopal Church.

Prediction is dangerous, but by any count if it is not Howard's end it could be the beginning of the end of a lot of dioceses that are being forced to close parishes and more. While healthy dioceses will continue to grow and flourish, they are not the central issue: orthodox clergy in revisionist dioceses are the issue, and their day might well be done, and when they leave, revisionist bishops will learn they can never put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

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