The church had refused to pay more than $16,000 it owed the diocese because it believes the diocese and the Episcopal Church of the USA shouldn't have supported the 2003 ordination of a gay bishop in New Hampshire and given individual dioceses the right to decide whether to bless same-sex unions.

Allen Walck, organist and choir director at All Saints, slipped into the back of the room at the Hyatt Regency hotel just in time to say the Lord's Prayer and hear the vote. When it became clear that the more than 200 delegates to the diocesan convention had decided to close his church, he put his head in his hands and wept.

"Goodbye now and God bless you," said All Saints' leader, the Rev. David Harnish, as he left the room to join parishioners who had gathered in the lobby.

Once he delivered the news, they prayed and encouraged one another.

"The same bishop who strongly opposes the death penalty has issued an ecclesiastical death sentence," Harnish told the small group from his church.

"But we are alive and well."

Harnish remains a priest in good standing with the diocese but has chosen to remain with All Saints. The church plans to hold a 10 a.m. service today at its regular site, 759 Winona Blvd. It is unclear how quickly the diocese will move to transfer the property.

But Saturday, that seemed to be the least of the diocese's worries.

"David (Harnish) and All Saints must have been the most prayed-for group in the diocese this week," said the Rev. Dahn Gandell of St. John's Episcopal Church in Honeoye Falls. "I know what it means to have to leave," she said, remembering when she left the Southern Baptists. "It can be heartbreaking, but he didn't have to leave."

The Rev. Canon Carolyn Lumbard, a spokeswoman for the diocese, said she had worked with All Saints for about four years and had come to know many of the people there.

"I know their struggle is their struggle, just like my struggle is my struggle," she said. "I don't understand theirs and they don't understand mine, either."

Still, the congregation has to abide by the agreed-upon norms, such as paying its share to the diocese, Lumbard said. Otherwise, it puts an unfair burden on the other 52 congregations.

Even if a person disagrees with some of the laws in the United States, "If you don't pay your taxes, you go to jail," said the Rev. Diana Purcell-Chapman, who works with Allegany County Episcopal Ministry. She reluctantly voted in favor of the resolution. "It had to be done," she said.

"We didn't kick them out. They chose to go," said the Rev. Denise Yarbrough of St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Penn Yan, Yates County.

Yarbrough, who is gay, said she knows there are people in the diocese who think she will burn in hell, but she works through that. She and others offered to meet with parishioners at All Saints to try to talk things out, but they were refused, she said.

Delegates also approved a resolution to establish a committee to look at starting "a mission congregation in Irondequoit or other appropriate community of the diocese."

In the meantime, All Saints plans to keep operating and perhaps provide a home to others who disagree with the diocese and the Episcopal Church of the USA, said Walck after he joined other parishioners in the lobby.

"We will be a church and we will be functioning," he said.

END