The congregation of 110 voted overwhelmingly to leave the Episcopal Church with 80 percent of the potential voters present moving to leave immediately. "All the families came with us and moved to accept an overseas Primate. The average attendance of 100 to 110, jumped to 147 when we met first at Tatesbrook Baptist Church last Sunday. The church renamed Apostles Anglican Church will take up temporary residence at Veterans Park Elementary School, said Gornik.

Lexington Bishop Stacy Sauls immediately inhibited Gornik and his 80-year-old Deacon Anna Gulick.

Tracing the history of their decision, Gornik said that after GC2003 they sent a letter to the bishop and the Executive Council stating they repudiated Robinson's consecration and same sex blessings and asked the church to repent and for Bishop Sauls to repudiate and reaffirm the traditional teaching of the church.

"We decided to no longer give any money to the diocese. We went to the PLANO meeting and, greatly encouraged, we took up two positions. The first was to redirect all our monies and secondly we would no longer accept Bishop Sauls authority as our bishop. In 2004 we held days of prayer and fasting seeking discernment. We focused on the Great Commission. In 2004 the bishop came up with appeal process for more money. We said no and redirected our monies to Haiti. Saul let us live with that. We attended Diocesan Convention but found the tone disrespectful of us. Our people refused to receive communion from Sauls. We then began to look at options. We joined the Network."

Gornik said the central issue was jurisdiction. "Sauls said he would never release jurisdiction to any other bishop even though he offered us DEPO. He allowed us to redirect monies and he agreed not to visit and we could have another bishop even one from the Network, but he never released jurisdiction and demanded full canonical authority over our life. We could not accept that. He (Sauls) had consented to false teaching. That was a bridge too far."

Sauls had voted for the Robinson consecration and for same sex blessings. It was over for us, he said.

"Two compromises about money and episcopal oversight did not get to the issue for us. Authority and jurisdiction were the twin issues. We came to a place and we waited on the Windsor Report. When we saw the House of Bishops was not demonstrating any tangible evidence of a real spirit of repentance, no concrete of acts of repentance, we knew it was over. We no longer wanted to participate in ECUSA and we wanted to take advantage of overseas oversight. The HOB January meeting in Utah simply confirmed that it was a minimalist response. We became weary of words we wanted to see acts of repentance. They were never forthcoming."

The parish wanted to move on and get out from cloud of uncertainty, said Gornik.

On January 16 they had their final service then closed the doors. "We left the keys on the Narthex table, dissolved our ties and left the property worth $1.3 million - debt free. We had no endowment."

Asked why he was not prepared to fight for the property as other parishes were doing, Gornik said, "We did not want to enter into a public, legal fight and if it costs us the property so be it. For the sake of the gospel we were willing to make the sacrifice. Our hope is that they will let us buy out the property.

The following week the bishop brought in a port-a-congregation of 15 people to make it look as though everything was running smoothly, but that will be short-lived, said Gornik. A letter from Sauls was read aloud.

Gornik said the parish tried to negotiate with Sauls for the buildings. "The diocese gave us a $535,000 grant out of designated funds to purchase the property. We made an offer of this amount of money to get title. Sauls made a counter offer soliciting donations to retire a debt on the mission house (diocesan headquarters) He wanted $350,000. A couple in our congregation said they would give him the $350.000 plus $50,000 for 3 years if Sauls gave them the deed to the property of the Apostles. Then Sauls said he would give them a 99 year lease if the church didn't opt to join another Anglican province. He then upped the ante saying that if they left ECUSA they would have to pay their diocesan assessment of $42,000. Sauls has tried to spin it otherwise, he sent a letter to the diocese regarding the property which is not the true story."

Gornik reiterated that public fights and court battles were not for his people. "We leave and will partner with other orthodox folk. We grieve that it hasn’t worked out."

"We are excited about our new bishop and partnership; we are excited about being out of the Episcopal confusion. The ECUSA is in theological free fall. The HOB is clearly unable to discipline its own church, so mission has stalled."

Asked if he plans to stay in the Network, Gornik said yes. "We are in the Network and we will stay in it. We are partnered locally with St. Patrick's Anglican Church an AMIA parish in Lexington and St. Andrew's in Versailles, another parish that left the Episcopal Church. We are trusting God to build a new Anglican network in out state."

Gornik said that he had intentionally not gone to the media and not spoken badly of Sauls preferring to stay under the radar screen. We have tried to do this in as Christian a way as we know how. Sauls reaction to us does not acknowledge that."

Both Gornik and his 80-year old Deacon Anna Gulick have received detailed papers of inhibition, with the promise that they would both be deposed in 6 months.

END