KEY POINTS:
Will this be the straw that breaks the camel's back? The decision this month by eight Episcopalian parishes in Virginia to leave the church and affiliate with Anglicans in Uganda or Nigeria may be a watershed in a seismic division that threatens to split the Episcopalian Church of USA (ECUSA), a member of the worldwide Anglican Communion, as conservative congregations reject homosexual clergy.
"A burden is being lifted. There are new possibilities breaking through," said the Rev Martyn Minns, the rector at Truro Church in Fairfax, Virginia.
For Minns and fellow traditionalists - as "smells and bells" Episcopalians who prefer a more literal reading of scripture are called - the burden referred to was the acceptance of homosexuality by the church establishment, most recently the consecration of an openly gay man, Gene Robinson, as Bishop of New Hampshire in 2003.
The Virginia parishes followed California's San Joaquin diocese, which withdrew from the ECUSA on December 2. Earlier, three Los Angeles parishes joined the Ugandan church. Such moves prefigure a turf war, as African primates appoint missionary bishops to ordain US clergy. Minns was consecrated as a bishop in the Nigerian church by Archbishop Peter Akinola, who condemns gays as "worse than beasts", and leads the breakaway Convocation of Anglicans in North America, a group that defies Anglican custom and which may be condemned by other primates as illegitimate.
While the ruptures reflect disputes about the authority of scripture, the Episcopal divorcees, like those outside the church, may end up in court. Defectors - 95 to 37 in St Stephen's Episcopal Church, in Heathsville, Virginia - have voted to keep property the church insists is "held in trust".
While fewer than 50 parishes out of 7200 have bolted from the church - which denies any schism - their departure mirrors a national debate over same-sex marriage and tensions over gays among other denominations, including a 2004 split among Baptists. Evangelicals condemn homosexuality, although two pastors, Ted Haggard and Paul Barnes, recently resigned after admitting to affairs with men.
For America's 2.3 million Episcopalians, the latest developments are the culmination of divisions that date back to the ordination of women three decades ago. "While this is a settled question for most of the church [they elected their first female Presiding Bishop this year] it has always been a bit uncomfortable for many conservatives," says Kevin Eckstrom, editor of Religion News Service. "So if that planted the seed of dissatisfaction, we're seeing the fruit of that."
Until recently liberals and conservatives existed, albeit uneasily in some parishes, under the same big tent. Episcopalians, who split from the Church of England in 1789, are probably the most left-leaning and tolerant Anglican community. The former Bishop of Newark, John Selby Spong, retained his post although he questioned Jesus' resurrection. But the ordination of gays and lesbians was the last straw.
The dispute highlights rifts among the Anglican Communion, where a majority of 38 "provinces" - mostly in Africa, Latin America and Asia - have condemned the ECUSA. American dissidents believe the Global South, home to most of the 77-million strong faith (Nigeria claims 17 million adherents), offers a purer form of Christianity. It is a shift in the 500-year-old church's axis (Anglicanism's spiritual leader, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has no authority outside the UK) that has led to "reverse missionaries" being dispatched by hard-liners like Akinola.
Thus, paradoxically, conservative Episcopalians are helping boost a radical shift towards the Global South. This has led to an unprecedented situation where Akinola has intervened in a US diocese, a stunning breach of church etiquette.
"Some see these actions as clearly crossing boundaries," says Robert Williams, director of communications with the Episcopal News Service. "It's been the tradition of Christian bishops since the Council of Nicea in 325 [the 4th century] not to infringe in other bishops' dioceses."
But while the ordination of gays - the Rev Katharine Jefferts Schori, ECUSA's Presiding Bishop, has allowed same-sex marriages in her Nevada diocese - and the violation of diocese boundaries have rocked Episcopalians, these divisions are now spilling over into state courts as factions wrangle over property.
It is hard to put an accurate figure on the worth of the Episcopalian Church, but hundreds of millions of dollars is probably a conservative estimate. St Trinity Wall Street is perhaps the wealthiest church of any denomination in the US, owning sizeable chunks of Lower Manhattan and Wall Street real estate. And while some parishes scramble to pay their bills, the church is blessed with property, endowments, pension plans and other valuable assets.
"It is the church of the establishment," says Eckstrom. "It has enormous cultural weight - it's the church of George Washington and George H. Bush - and financial wealth."
Traditionally, the church has claimed ownership of all property. When the Virginia parishes bolted, Bishop Peter James Lee reiterated that church assets were "held in trust". He warned dissidents the church would enforce its "canonical and legal rights over these properties".
Still, Anglican dissidents have seized property before, starting with Henry VIII, who broke with Rome, then Episcopalians who quit Canterbury. Can the church prevail?
"The simple statement that property is held in trust comes from a canon passed in 1979 on the heels of a Supreme Court decision," explains Valerie Munson, a Philadelphia attorney who litigates church property disputes.
But a Los Angeles court found for the three parishes that split from the local diocese, although this decision is being appealed.
The latest defections in Virginia have raised the ante. "I think what's going on there will be key," says Munson. She says "reliable sources" told her that Lee spent "some time" working to keep the dissident parishes in the fold, but was told that piecemeal negotiations were "not in the best interests of the national church".
Which sounds as if the church may have drawn a line: conform to our policy on gays or leave. Whether defectors will seriously drain the ECUSA coffers is unsure. Eckstrom notes Trinity Church "isn't a breakaway" and suspects "most old-money churches" will remain loyal. Still, two of the Virginia bolters came from wealthy Washington suburbs, and California's dissidents live in one of America's richest regions. Ironically, given the rebels' defection to leaders in Nigeria and Uganda, and the legal clash between God and Mammon, Africa is a major beneficiary of church largesse.
