Content about Mark Lawrence

A South Carolina court has made permanent the temporary restraining order entered on 23 Jan 2013 in the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina case.  On 31 Jan 2013 Judge Diane Goodstein issued a Temporary Injunction that supplanted her Temporary Restraining Order which forbade any person or entity from claiming to be or using the name, symbols and seal of the diocese save for Bishop Mark Lawrence and the officers of the diocese.

The Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina reports that 15 further congregations have joined it in their 4 Jan 2013 lawsuit against the national Episcopal Church.

The leaders of the Global South coalition of Anglican provinces have written to Bishop Mark Lawrence of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina stating they do not recognize the validity of Presiding Bishop Katharine Jeffert Schori’s purported deposition of him from episcopal office and the ordained ministry.

A gathering of national church loyalists has learned that Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori is backing their move to claim the mantle of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina.

The presiding bishop's attorney told the 15 Nov 2012 meeting of TEC loyalists   the national church had been preparing for the fight with Bishop Lawrence and the majority faction in the diocese for some time.  However assertions made at the meeting that the former Bishop of East Tennessee will be intervening on behalf of the presiding bishop supplant Bishop Mark Lawrence were unfounded.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has told the Bishop of Springfield she has not declared the ecclesiastical authority of South Carolina to be vacant.  However, she has conceded her staff has been working with dissidents in the diocese to appointment new members to replace those no longer recognized as exercising legal authority over the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina by the national church.

A spokesman for the diocese said she was unaware of any current vacancies on the board.

The national Episcopal Church and its loyalists in the Diocese of South Carolina will be held accountable for violating civil and canon law, Bishop Mark Lawrence has told the members of his diocese.

In a pastoral letter released on 15 Nov 2012 endorsed by 35 rectors and vicars, Bishop Lawrence urged members of the diocese to hold fast to the faith once delivered to the saints.  The crisis in the national Episcopal Church had been brought about by a perfect storm – a “convergence” of revisionist “theology, morality and polity”, he wrote, that has taken place over the past 25 years “within The Episcopal Church.”

The Standing Committee of Upper South Carolina has urged the Presiding Bishop to abort the national church’s legal campaign in South Carolina and wage peace with Bishop Mark Lawrence.

The 2 Nov 2012 letter urging a cease fire in the war between the national church and South Carolina may well be too late to avert a crisis. 

The Bishop of South Carolina is not leaving the Episcopal Church, but has withdrawn from the 77th General Convention meeting in Indianapolis out of pastoral concern and respect for the members of his diocesan deputation and over his personal disquiet over the church’s authorization of gay blessings.

On 11 July 2012 the Rt. Rev. Mark Lawrence said, “I am not leaving the Episcopal Church, but need to differentiate myself” from the actions taken this week by the General Convention, he told Anglican Ink.

I received a phone call from Bishop Dorsey Henderson, President of the Disciplinary Board for Bishops, regarding their ruling on my case which has been before them for several months. In a conference of the board members on November 22nd the Disciplinary Board was unable to certify that I had abandoned the Episcopal Church. While the statement leaves many questions unanswered-frankly, to my mind it appears to read like a complex statement of a complex decision in a complex time within a complex church.