Visiting with local Anglican churches that he oversees from his diocese in Bolivia, Bishop Francis Lyons this week said he sees a day when former Episcopalians will again have their own American leadership.
As for the Episcopal Church U.S.A., he is not so optimistic.
"This is just temporary, emergency oversight that we are providing," said Lyons, a native of Maryland who has lived in Bolivia since 2001.
In North County, Lyons oversees St. Anne's in Oceanside, Holy Family in Vista, Church of the Resurrection in San Marcos, Sts. Timothy and Titus in Poway, and Good Shepherd in Encinitas. Creating a new American province would mean those churches would no longer have to turn to a foreign diocese for oversight, and Lyons would tend only to his five churches in Bolivia. Lyons oversees 35 congregations in the United States, including the five North County churches and Holy Faith in Bonita.
By the end of the year, he said, he hopes the Episcopal Church U.S.A. will no longer be a part of the worldwide Anglican Communion. Instead, he said, it will be replaced by a new province, the term used for different branches of the communion, that is more in line with the other 37 worldwide Anglican provinces and more conservative than the American province that now oversees 2.4 million Episcopalians.
It is a bold prediction, and Lyons, 52, said that it really is "anyone's guess" as to what will happen when archbishops within the worldwide communion gather next month in Tanzania, where church leaders may or may not decide the fate of the Episcopal Church U.S.A.
If the archbishops did disenfranchise the American province, it would not mean the dissolution of the Episcopal Church, which dates to colonial times in the United States and operates autonomously under the leadership of its own presiding bishop. It would mean only that the members of that province would no longer be under the umbrella of the worldwide Anglican Communion.
Throughout the country in recent years, conservative Episcopalians who wanted to remain within the Anglican Communion but were unhappy with the direction of the American province have split away and turned to foreign dioceses for oversight. Eight of the 51 congregations within the San Diego Diocese have been affected by the schism.
That schism was exacerbated in 2003 with the election of V. Gene Robinson, an openly gay man living with a partner, as a bishop. Last year, the church elected its first female presiding bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, who accepts homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle.
But the schism was not just about views of homosexuality, and it did not begin with the Robinson election, Lyons said.
"I know from my own experience, this stuff has been going on for 40 years or more," he said.
Schori's basic views of theology and salvation, including the idea that Jesus is but one path to salvation, left Lyons and other former Episcopalians feeling the church had strayed from the Gospel and fundamental beliefs.
"People who are staying in the Episcopal Church right now are having a difficult time understanding what Jesus is saying to them," Lyons said while visiting in the home of the Rev. Tony Baron of St. Anne's Anglican Church.
In Lyons' frank view, people in the Episcopal Church are no longer following Jesus.
Lyons himself did not technically leave the Episcopal Church, although he said he has had problems with its direction for years.
"I'm a refugee of the Episcopal Church U.S.A." he said.
Raised in a conservative Episcopal Church in Maryland, Lyons studied at a seminary in hopes of being ordained as a minister. When he graduated, his diocese would not ordain him.
"At the end, they didn't like me," he said. "I was too conservative to them." The tension was nothing new to Lyons, who said his hometown church was in a constant battle with the diocese.
"My thought was, I just wanted to serve the Lord," Lyons said.
The borders of the communion's 38 provinces extend beyond national boundaries, and the Diocese of Ecuador is within the Episcopal Church U.S.A. province. In 1980, Lyons answered their call for ordained ministers.
At age 26, he spoke no Spanish and said his grasp of Latino culture did not include much more than Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass.
"I preached fill-in-the-blank sermons," he said. "But that was good, because nobody fell asleep."
Lyons also served in Honduras and for nine years served at two California churches. In 2001, he was called to Bolivia, which is not in the Episcopal Church U.S.A. province but in an Anglican province called the Southern Cone.
Some former Episcopal congregations have left the American province and aligned with dioceses in Africa, where an Anglican bishop said he supported a law there criminalizing homosexuality.
"We would say homosexuality is a disorder," Lyons said. "We wouldn't be interested in putting homosexuals in jail, but neither are we in favor of ordaining them."
As for women in the church, Lyons said he is in favor of them serving as deacons, but not priests, as is the rule in Bolivia.
Contact staff writer Gary Warth at (760) 740-5410 or gwarth@nctimes.com.
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