(Reuters) – A majority of parishes in the conservative Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina voted on Saturday to leave the U.S. Episcopal Church over disagreements on issues including the national church’s ordination of gay clergy and acceptance of same-sex unions.
The South Carolina diocese is the fifth Episcopalian diocese in the United States to leave the church’s national body.
The vote at a convention in Charleston followed the U.S. Episcopal Church’s certification last month that South Carolina Bishop Mark J. Lawrence had abandoned the church’s doctrine, discipline and worship.
“This has never been about who is welcome or not welcome in our church,” Lawrence said at the convention, attended by about 200 people. “It’s about what we shall tell them when they come.”
But Steve Skardon, a member of a Charleston church that, contrary to the action of its statewide branch, plans to remain in the national church, said of the majority: “They want to tell gay people they’re wrong.”
Congregations in San Joaquin, California; Quincy, Illinois; Fort Worth, Texas; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania have also left the U.S. Episcopal Church in recent years.
In July, the national church approved a liturgy for clergy to use in blessing same-sex unions, including gay marriages in states where they are legal, becoming the largest U.S. religious denomination to approve such a ritual.
The U.S. Episcopal Church, part of the worldwide Anglican Communion, is the 14th-largest U.S. religious denomination, with about 2 million members, according to the National Council of Churches.
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