'Battle of Accokeek' intensifies

Cris Fouse with Robert Stowe England | 13 July 2001

WASHINGTON, D. C. -- With yesterday's delivery by 33 laymen and 3 clergy of a Presentment against her, acting bishop of Washington, Jane Dixon, is now the fourth bishop of the Episcopal Church ever to receive this legal complaint.

The four-count complaint charges that Dixon has violated church canons in trying to prevent the Rev'd Samuel Edwards from continuing as Rector of Christ Church, Accokeek, MD, a small, rural parish in Dixon's diocese.

A second set of charges is expected some time today, signed by bishops of the Church.

These Presentments are being signed because of the lengths to which Dixon is going to prevent a traditional priest from serving a parish in her revisionist diocese.

On Monday evening, June 25, papers were served to Father Edwards just as he was preparing to celebrate the Holy Eucharist at the parish.

In a move unheard of in the history of the Episcopal Church, Dixon had filed a suit in the U.S. District Court of Maryland against Edwards and the Vestry of St. John's Parish (which includes Christ Church, Accokeek and St. John's Chapel, Pomonkey), seeking to oust him from the parish, evict him and his family from the rectory, and take over the parish herself.

Dixon's attorneys then filed a motion for a preliminary injunction and an expedited hearing in an attempt to immediately oust Fr. Edwards and gain access to the parish property. The parish filed a motion to strike the above motion.

On July 6, a story in Episcopal Life indicated that a presentment had been made against Fr. Edwards by clergy of the Diocese of Washington. The charges had not been forwarded to Fr. Edwards' own bishop (Fort Worth's Jack Iker) for action within three months, as directed in the Episcopal Church's canons on clergy discipline.

Charles Nalls, Attorney for Edwards and Christ Church, expects to file a motion to dismiss on Monday. He will state that Dixon "concealed these charges (against Fr. Edwards) and opted instead to go around the canons and go to federal court." Federal courts are uniformly reluctant to enter into church disputes when avenues for settlement under the ecclesiastical law have not been exhausted.

Judge Peter J. Messite of the U.S. District of Maryland has set August 23 for a hearing and has called on both sides to attempt mediation ahead of the hearing date.

Meanwhile, Bishop Jack Iker of Fort Worth, who has stepped in to give "episcopal oversight and protection" to Edwards (still canonically resident in Fort Worth) and to the parish, has asked why Dixon's attorneys appear to have concealed May 26 presentment charges against Fr. Edwards until this past week.

One might think that Dixon (whether by design or simply from habit is not yet clear) is repeating the tactics used in relation to Fr. Edwards' call to the Accokeek parish. Despite the canon's clear requirement that a bishop respond within 30 days to the calling of a priest to the diocese, she waited 83 days - 53 days after the deadline - before rejecting him. The question now arises whether she was now hoping that, if Bishop Iker were unaware of the new charges, he would be unable to respond to them until too late, at which point Fr. Edwards would come under the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical court of the Diocese of Washington.