Iker takes pastoral oversight of Accokeek

Robert Stowe England | 27 May 2001

ACCOKEEK, MD -- Fort Worth Bishop Jack L. Iker has agreed to a request by the parish's vestry to assume Episcopal oversight and protection of Christ Church in this rural community beginning immediately and continuing as long as it is necessary.

A letter from Fort Worth announcing the move was read twice today by retired Quincy Bishop Edward MacBurney at competing services, once to a standing ovation at the end of the 9 a. m. service held by the parish's rector, Fr. Samuel Edwards, and the other ahead of a competing service held at the same time outdoors by renegade Washington Suffragan Bishop Jane Dixon.

The move appears to mark the first time a sitting bishop has crossed boundaries within a single church jurisdiction since the early centuries of Christianity, according to Fr. Samuel Edwards, the parish's scholarly rector.

"This extraordinary step" of a traditional bishop taking episcopal oversight of a traditional parish in a revisionist diocese is also a signal that the United States has moved into a "post-Christian era that has more in common with the world of Constantine than with the Middle Ages," Fr. Edwards told reporters, including several from local TV stations.

An exhausted-looking Fr. Edwards told reporters who mobbed him as he was leaving the 9 a.m. service that "the congregation wants to stay in the Episcopal Church and I'm in complete support of that."

The alternative oversight from Bishop Iker allows the parish to remain within the denomination, while giving it some relief from a relentless persecution and threats of litigation against Fr. Edwards by Dixon.

During his sermon Fr. Edwards addressed the issue of unity within the Episcopal Church. "The world does not understand where our Christian unity comes from. It comes from sharing the mind of Christ. It doesn't come from anything outward, or from an institution. When there is no sharing of the mind of God there is no unity. When we do share the mind of God, unity will manifest itself both inwardly, outwardly and visibly," he said.

In his letter to the congregation, Bishop Iker writes: "The Rev. Samuel Edwards, who has served as a priest in good standing under my oversight for the past eight years, will continue to serve as your duly called Rector. This arrangement will continue for as long as the current circumstances make it necessary," Bishop Iker stated in his letter, which is dated May 26.

"I am taking this step," Iker writes, because Dixon, "in refusing to accept your Vestry's' call of Fr. Edwards as your Rector, is denying you that 'sustained pastoral care' which, in their Pastoral Letter of 2001 from Kanuga, the Anglican primates committed themselves to secure.

"The failure in the Diocese of Washington to find a way to respect recognized theological positions shared by many throughout the Anglican Communion is in danger of breaking the peace and unity of the Church and is depriving you of necessary pastoral care. This I Pray may now be rectified by my intervention," Iker writes.

The arrangement is intended to be only temporary, he states, adding it is his prayer that "in due course a graceful accommodation may be made by the Diocese of Washington whereby your call to Fr. Edwards may be ratified canonically."

When Bishop MacBurney was asked if the events of the day might be a prelude to a split in the national church and the Anglican Communion, he said, "We hope the Diocese of Washington will be more generous to the people who are orthodox and traditional within the diocese" and prevent the conflict from escalating into a broad split.

While some were jubilant about Iker's move, MacBurney was more cautious, "It's a cause of great sadness that something like this should have to happen. We need to ponder more on the fact that Jesus is Lord," he said.

Dixon rejected the call of Fr. Edwards March 8, long after the 30-day deadline that bishops have to respond and review a parish's call of a rector.

Dixon took her own counter-offensive Sunday by appointing retired Washington Bishop Ronald Haines as priest in charge at the parish for one month, eliciting no audible response from the crowd of supporters. She was doing so, she said, because the parish was vacant because a 60-day period has passed during which Fr. Edwards could hold services without a license.

Haines, who had arrived quietly by going around to the back of the church, served as a co-celebrant of a card-table mass that was frequently interrupted by a heckler.

It is doubtful Haines will be allowed to hold services and doubtful he has legal authority to do so, according to Nalls, since it is the legal responsibility of the vestry, not the bishop, to call interims and rectors. If he returns, he too, may face arrest.

Haines will not be returning next week, Dixon said. Instead, a yet-to-be named priest is expected to try to enter the property to hold services as supply clergy.

The day bristled with a sense of history and the destiny of the Anglican Communion seemed to hang in the air. There was a feeling among the supporters of Fr. Edwards they they had won the day and that the tide was turning in favor of them and against the aggressive revisionist Dixon.

Some observers speculated that Dixon's misadventure in Accokeek might prove to be the beginning of the retreat of the power of revisionists, who have steadily gained and consolidated power over the last half century. Dixon had failed because she went too far and provoked Bishop Iker into establishing alternative episcopal oversight, some reasoned.

"It's like D-Day," said one observer, where the traditionalists have won an important victory and the tide of the war has turned in their favor.

Indeed, Dixon's oft-tried and by now tiresome use of force on parishes seemed today to degenerate into a parody of itself, if not a farce. It was a success simply to get through it.

Dixon's feisty determination to hold a service outside even after she was refused entry into the church for the 9 a.m. service turned the day into a media circus. There were more than a dozen reporters there, including several from local television stations. At one point a visitor from another parish interrupted Dixon by loudly singing a hymn and was joined by several others who drowned at Dixon's voice.

Dixon, who looked bedraggled and besieged, entered the property to celebrate mass in an open-air pavilion on the property after being asked to sit in the congregation during the service and to not attempt to preach and celebrate mass. When Dixon indicated she would not be content to sit in the congregation, Senior Warden Barbara Sturman, who stood at the door, told her she would have to leave.

"Well, I'll just celebrate in the pavilion," she huffed, and marched away with an entourage of reporters and supporters following her, including the chairman of the Standing Committee, Fr. Thomas Andrews of Holy Trinity in Bowie, Maryland.

Two Prince Georges police officers, who were there at the request of the vestry to maintain the peace, asked Dixon to leave the property three times. She refused. The parish owns the property in fee simple. The diocese, however, contends that the parish owns the property in trust for the diocese.

The parish intends to swear out a warrant for Jane's arrest for trespassing tomorrow, with police officers as their witness. They will also be filing an assault charges against her husband, David, according to parish attorney Charles Nalls. David Dixon put both hands on Junior Warden Frank McDonough and pushed him, after McDonough tried to persuade Dixon to leave the pavilion.

As she tried to begin her service Dixon, who wore a scarlet robe, was interrupted and heckled by Stanley Hubert, a young man who regularly attends services at Christ Church, but who is not a member. The service seemed more an act of vengeance than an act of love.

Hubert talked loudly over her voice as he stood directly in front of the card table that served as a make-shift altar. After repeatedly interrupting Dixon and later Carter Echols, the diocesan deployment officer, who was doing the reading of the Scripture, Hubert sat down in front of the folding card table that was set up as an altar and remained there in protest throughout the service.

Dixon and Haines had to walk around him to serve the wafers and wine.

Afterward Hubert said he had hoped to persuade Dixon to "come inside rather than separate the congregation." He faulted her for her ongoing campaign to stir up division in the parish in an effort to defeat the call of Fr. Edwards, "She's trying to divide the people. That's not a Christian thing to do," he said.

Dixon has spent $10,000 or more on Fed-Ex letters to current and former parishioners in an effort to vilify Fr. Edwards and divide the parish, according to Nalls.

David Hoffman, an Accokeek resident and parishioner of St. Mark's on Capitol Hill, was there and brimming with anger at the parish leaders and even the press who were there to cover the event. He tried to pick arguments with several press members. Hoffman has attended several parish meetings to speak harshly against Fr. Edwards and appears to show up every time Dixon comes to the parish.

There were about 120 people in the pavilion at one point, including 22 members of the parish and about 35 former members, according to a tally by a vestry members. About 70 people took part in a communion, including wafers and wine poured directly from an entire bottle of tawny port.

There were about 50 to 60 people at the 8 a.m. service inside the church, and nearly 100 at the 9 a.m. service. The parish was founded by the Church of England in 1698 and predates the Diocese of Washington by 200 years.

The ramifications of the move by Iker are yet to be unraveled. Several sources report that Iker and Presiding Bishop Griswold discussed the matter yesterday and that both called Dixon to try to persuade her to avoid a clash at Accokeek.

At noon Saturday Dixon had agreed to come and merely sit in the congregation, according to Fr. Edwards. Later that day, perhaps after she learned Iker was set to assume episcopal oversight, she let it be known she would be coming to celebrate mass and preach. Griswold is reported to have responded to Iker's notice that he would assume episcopal oversight by washing his hands of the whole affair, in a move reminiscent of Pontius Pilate, according to informed sources.

A copy of Iker's letter is being sent to Griswold, as well as Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey.

There were several moments of comic relief during the boisterous day. One came when a banner was unfurled after the 9 a.m. service that was prepared by a parishioner of Ascension & St. Agnes, Thomas Whinerey. It read as follows.

"Dear Ms. Dixon:
Tis obvious you have our church outgrown
perhaps it's time you go and start your own
and leave this old and faithful church alone
until our Lord returns to take us home."

There were a number of supporters of the parish from around the diocese at both the 8 a.m and 9 a.m services, including a large number of supporters from Ascension and St. Anges in D.C., St. Luke's Bladensburg, Md., St. George's, Valley Lee, Md., as well as St. Paul's, K Street in D.C., Christ Church, Georgetown in D.C., St. James, Potomac, Md. St. Francis, Potomac, Md., and Christ Church, Clinton, Md.