The Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina asserted its "legal and ecclesiastical authority as a sovereign diocese" within the Episcopal Church (TEC) last Friday, and demanded the removal from its boundaries of legal counsels dispatched by TEC Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori.

In a resolution passed at its 219th annual convention, the S.C. diocese demanded that the Presiding Bishop "withdraw and terminate" the engagement of legal counsel Thomas Tisdale Jr., who was employed by TEC to offer representation to those in the diocese "who want to stay Episcopalians," according to a February statement by Schori.

The S.C. Diocese voted last October to "begin withdrawing" from all bodies of the Episcopal Church "assenting to actions deemed contrary to Holy Scripture…. until such bodies show a willingness to repent of such actions."

Declaring itself to be a "gospel diocese," the S.C. Diocese's 219th convention denounced recent moves by the church's Los Angeles diocese to ordain a partnered lesbian bishop – a decision that TEC Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said "represents the mind of a majority of elected leaders in the Episcopal Church, lay, clergy, and bishops."

"Clearly these are disruptive challenges to the teaching we have received from the last two thousand years in the church of Jesus Christ," Bishop Mark Lawrence told the convention, adding that "there is little reason to believe the move toward an ever wider embrace of sexual understandings for those in ordained ministry should stop here."

"This is our battle to engage," Lawrence said. "We are not entirely alone, but our list of allies at home grows thin."

The diocese also lamented the use of legal force by the TEC in dealing with the situation saying that such litigation creates "animosities and divisions that are not easily healed."

"It has failed as a positive cohesive force for maintaining the unity of the church and has in fact had precisely the opposite effect," the group stated. "Christians are suing Christians; the reputation of the church is marred, and vital resources are diverted from essential Kingdom work. None of this is honoring to our Savior."

Referring to a recent "respectful conversation" he had with Jefferts Schori about the litigation, Lawrence told the convention that the Presiding Bishop "asserted once again what she has stated publicly on many occasions: that she has responsibility for the whole church, that the property of the Episcopal Church must be protected and this is one of her duties."

"Unfortunately, after lengthy and respectful conversation, the presiding bishop and I stand looking at one another across a wide, deep and seemingly unbridgeable theological and canonical chasm," he noted. "At present both of us have signaled a willingness to continue the conversation even if it requires phone conversations from vastly different area codes."