By NEELA BANERJEE

Published: March 13, 2008

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The Episcopal Church moved to remove the bishop of the San Joaquin Diocese in California on Wednesday, in reaction to the diocese’s unprecedented decision late last year to secede from the church over theological issues.

The bishop, John-David Schofield, is the first bishop to face such action as a result of the disputes over the church’s stance on homosexuality.

At its semiannual meeting, in Texas, the church’s House of Bishops voted “to consent to the deposition from the ordained ministry�?of Bishop Schofield.

The vote and the events leading to it underscore the discord tearing at the Episcopal Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion, of which the church is the American branch, since the church ordained the Rev. V. Gene Robinson, a gay man in a long-term relationship, as bishop of New Hampshire in 2003.

In December, Bishop Schofield presided over a vote by his diocese, in the Central Valley of California, to split with the Episcopal Church and align itself with the Province of the Southern Cone, which is in South America.

After the vote, the Episcopal Church’s leadership said Bishop Schofield would have a few months to change his mind and the course of his diocese, which had about 8,800 members before the December vote. The bishop held to his position but later resigned from the church’s House of Bishops. The vote to remove him said he had “repudiated the doctrine, discipline and worship of the Episcopal Church.�?/P>

Bishops have been deposed in the past, including one four years ago for financial impropriety, said Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, the chief pastor of the Episcopal Church. But experts said the church and dissident dioceses were treading new ground as those dioceses weigh leaving the church for another part of the 77-million-member global Communion.

“I have not abandoned the faith,�?Bishop Schofield said in an e-mail statement. “It is the leadership of the Episcopal Church that is treating itself as a separate and unique church. They may do so, but they ought not expect everyone to follow teaching that serves only to undermine the authority of the Bible and ultimately leads to lifestyles that are destructive.�?/P>

Traditionalists at home and abroad assert that the Bible describes homosexuality as an abomination, and they consider the Episcopal Church’s ordination of Bishop Robinson as the latest and most galling proof of its rejection of biblical authority.

In the last four years, the Anglican Communion, the world’s third-largest Christian body, has edged closer to fracture over the issue. In the United States, several dozen individual congregations out of nearly 7,700 have split with the Episcopal Church. But the San Joaquin vote was the first time an entire diocese chose to secede. About three-quarters of San Joaquin’s 47 parishes have followed the bishop. Those Episcopalians who remained are working with the church’s leadership to reconstitute the diocese with a new bishop.

Experts on the church said the deposing of Bishop Schofield had set the stage for the next phase of the conflict, which would most likely be lawsuits over diocesan and parish property.

The Rev. Ephraim Radner, a leading Episcopal conservative and professor of historical theology at Wycliffe College in Toronto, echoed other experts when he said the removal of Bishop Schofield would send a message to others considering a split with the church. Two other bishops have been warned not to proceed with votes to secede. Episcopal bishops denied, however, that the vote to depose the bishop was “punitive.�?/P>

“I don’t think we are sending messages but dealing with matters at hand,�?Bishop Suffragan Catherine S. Roskam of New York said in a conference call. “We have dealt with it with sober conversation, dealt with it prayerfully and even regretfully.�?/P>

2008 New York Times