Published: October 09, 2008 11:43 pm      

TOWN OF TONAWANDA: St. Bartholomew’s pulls away from Episcopal Church

St. Bartholomew’s is leaving the Episcopal church and taking it’s more than 1,000 members with it.

The church’s pastor, Rev. Arthur Ward Jr., said philosophical and theological differences between the congregation and the Episcopal church have been brewing for years. The group began withholding its donations from the church when the first openly gay bishop was consecrated in 2003, but Ward is quick to point out that the gay issue is simply the straw that broke the camel’s back. He said over the last three decades the church has been allowing their leaders to diverge on such core issues as the virgin birth and whether Christ is the sole means to salvation.

“We can’t be under that type of thinking or leadership,” Ward said. “The most important thing is the authority of God’s word as we understand it.”

Now, after 53 years in its current location, the congregation is pulling up roots and moving on. The congregation’s leaders began exploring its options early this year, and found that negotiation for the church’s property at 1064 Brighton Road and litigation to take it weren’t likely to succeed. Moving was the only viable option for separation, so the church held a meeting with its members on May 4 to distribute a survey asking whether they would support relocating. Ward said that turned out with unanimous support for a move.

“That’s not to say everyone agreed, but everyone who returned the survey agreed,” Ward said.

Bishop Michael Garrison, leader of the Episcopalian Church’s Western New York Diocese, met with Ward after that vote and said Ward told him he’d be informed a few months before a move.

The congregation’s leaders explored several options for a new location and eventually settled on the recently-vacated building at 2368 Eggert Road formerly occupied by the Jewish Temple Beth El. The leaders polled the congregation again in September to see if they would be behind a move to the Beth El site, again with unanimous approval, Ward said.

“That building is much larger and less than a mile away,” Ward said. “Even though it’s difficult to leave the building after 53 years, principle is more important than property.”

When it relocates, the congregation will become St. Bartholomew’s Anglican Church. Ward and other clergy from the church will be transferred to the Diocese of Argentina, part of the province of the Southern Cone.

“That diocese’s archbishop is sympathetic to those of us who cannot continue on in the Episcopalian church,” Ward said.

An American bishop will oversee the church along with several other churches nationwide that have made a similar move. Eventually, the new churches are hopeful they can create a separate Anglican diocese in the United States to accommodate the difference in philosophies. Ward said.

A new corporation comprised of outside donors was formed to take out the mortgage for the new building since the congregation can’t participate until the move. After that, the payments on the new church will be funded by the membership, Ward said.

The existing building will continue on as St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church and hold services just like usual following the split. Preparations are already being arranged for the switch. Garrison said he can’t foresee what will happen in the long term if the numbers don’t support the church’s continued presence, but that he has no intention of seeing he church go by the wayside.

“Our hope is we’ll be able to have a revitalized congregation there,” Garrison said. “It’s not unusual in Western New York to see churches close, but that’s not what we want to happen.”