JACKSONVILLE, FL - Grace will take on diocese, has left the Episcopal denomination; a lawsuit over church property may be ahead

By MARY MARAGHY
Clay County Line
1/21/2006

Leaders and lawyers at Grace Church said they plan to fight to keep their 6-acre, 17-building Kingsley Avenue campus, following a bishop's order to vacate or be sued.

Episcopal Bishop John Howard -- leader of Florida's 21-county, 31,000-member diocese -- has barred the Rev. Sam Pascoe, Grace's pastor for 20 years, from performing priestly duties on the property.

Pascoe, who said he no longer reports to Howard anyway, said he and his staff scrambled Tuesday night to gather essential documents in case the bishop's staff came to change the locks. Normal church services will continue, officials said.

The Rev. Canon Kurt Dunkle, Howard's chief assistant, said the deadline was Wednesday for the church to turn over the keys but Grace officials said they won't without a court order.

"We have received no statement of their intent, therefore we are proceeding along with legal action," Dunkle said.

Grace officials said they will defend a lawsuit but don't want to sue the diocese because it would be costly and ungodly. Thus it's a waiting game to see who sues first.

Meanwhile, Grace officials and Dunkle said Grace Episcopal Day School will operate as usual.

"The day school is very healthy and completely unaffected by the current controversy," Dunkle said. "We look forward to their continued success."

Grace is the first Florida church threatened with litigation after leaving the Episcopal Church USA. Eight churches have left citing disagreements with the national church's ordination of a gay bishop. Four more, including the Church of the Good Samaritan in Orange Park, plan to leave.

Meanwhile, many churches are watching to see what happens at Grace, the first of the rift churches ordered to vacate church premises.

Three churches that left -- Calvary Church in Jacksonville, St. Michael's in Gainesville and St. Luke's Community of Life in Tallahassee -- left their buildings and worship elsewhere.

Under Episcopal law, or canon law, the diocese holds deeds to all church properties.

"Across the nation, canon law is losing ground in the courts," said David Dearing, a Grace church member and attorney. "We bought the land. We built the buildings. We maintain them. We pay the staff."

It's unfair to have to give it up, said Pascoe, who said the bishop has never visited his church nor provided any funding, aid or even emotional support.

Grace stopped sending money to the national Episcopal Church in 2003 and then the Florida diocese in 2004 . It has continued to send money directly to the same programs and ministries it has always supported.

Pascoe said he's shocked by the swiftness, mean-spirited and punitive nature of the bishop's demands, which came following Grace's Jan. 6 standing-room only service which marked its disassociation with the diocese and its Jan. 8 service announcing the church's realignment under the conservative Anglican bishop of Rwanda.

Pascoe said Howard and/or his representatives were invited, but did not attend, the disassociation service where Grace leaders ceremonially boxed up their Episcopal records, books, flags and garments.

"There was no one to hand them to," Pascoe said, adding that he's still willing to turn all that stuff over. "We don't need them anymore. We're Anglican."