The March/April issue of the diocesan newspaper The Harvest newspaper arrived on my desk this week filled with news of the departing Christ Church, Overland Park which voted to remove itself from the diocese and the ECUSA and come under the Province of Uganda and Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi.

The spin put out by a reporter called Melodie Woerman in the newspaper regarding the departure of Christ Church is appalling in its disinformation.

St. Nicholas is an orthodox parish of about 500 members with 400 active members and a budget of nearly $500,000. It has the highest average attendance of Sunday worshippers in the diocese. The apportionment to the diocese is over $100,000. Their five year old building is valued at $3.5 million.

They argued that the University of the South has a long standing tradition of conferring upon graduates of both the School of Theology and the College of Arts and Sciences, who become Episcopal bishops the honorary degree Doctor of Divinity. Neither the Student Assembly nor the Gay-Straight Alliance has any official connection to the Episcopal Church.

Orthodoxy, he said, represents a theological compromise or reduction made to include diversity.

The bishop blasted orthodox bishops willing to cross diocesan boundaries saying they "willfully violated the centuries-old consensus in place since the Council of Nicea that no bishop will enter the geographic bounds of another bishop's diocese without his or her permission."