Virginia Episcopal Bishop Peter J. Lee said Friday that he will retire three months early, on Oct. 1, in a bid to save money for his financially-strapped diocese.
“My resignation will occur several months earlier that I had originally anticipated,” he said to 700 Episcopalians gathered at the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia’s annual council at the Reston Hyatt, “but I believe it is an appropriate and necessary response to the realities we face.”
His early resignation will save the diocese $63,000, one-quarter of his salary package that includes housing, travel and other benefits, according to diocesan treasurer Mike Kerr.
Update: A chart of some of the diocese of Virginia Statistics is here.
Wow.
$63000.00 more toward lawsuits instead of ministry.
Lovely. /sarcasm
He should apply for some bail out money to provides for clerical jobs. This did not have to end this way and I wonder if he knows it.
Just think of all the money Bp. Lee could have saved by standing up to KJS and her Beers.
Bishop Lee has served the Diocese of Virginia well over the last 20 years. It is only in these last three years that he bought into the modern gospel.
May he be renewed in his retirement.
http://www.pwcweb.com/ecw
I trust everyone noticed that at the rate of $63K per quarter, +Lee’s ample compensation package amounts to a very substantial quarter million dollars a year (not that he gets it all, but in terms of the cost to the diocese). Virginia is the only diocese I know of that supplies a chaffeur to its bishop. Not bad, eh?
Now about seven or eight years ago, I would’ve said that he earned it all too. Having lived and ministered in VA for over twenty years, and having served several churches in that historically evangelical diocese, I can testify that +Peter James Lee is one of the most dedicated, competent, intelligent, hardworking, honorable bishops I’ve ever known. It’s a shame that his long and otherwise distinguished episcopate will now go down in history as ending in disaster.
It’s very sad, for Pb is right (though in a different way than he was talking about) it “did not have to end this way.” It reminds me of the tragic fate of King Saul, who went mad and ended in disgrace and defeat. “How are the mighty fallen!”
I’m pretty sure we haven’t yet seen the last of the defections of conservative congregations from this once proud and strong diocese. “There are yet 7,000 (laity) who haven’t bowed the knee to Baal” in the Diocese of Virginia, but what they will do in the future is still unclear.
I know it’s only anecdotal evidence and not statistically representative, but I am thinking now of two of my good friends who left TEC over a year ago. This couple has deep roots in both Virginia and TEC. Her side of the family has been part of the Episcopal Church in Virginia for ten generations; his side for nine. And in Virginia that’s a big deal. It tore them up inside to leave.
But they did. As individuals. Their parish stayed.
David Handy+
Particularly sad to me is the last paragraph, which notes that the Virginia Diocese will be raising funds to pay off its legal bills by selling off unused property that it had acquired and set aside for future chuch planting efforts in growing areas. In so doing, of course, the diocese is mortgaging its future to pay for past mistakes and crippling its prospects for growth in the present too.
One of +Peter Lee’s great accomplishments was to preside over the longest string of vigorous and successful efforts at planting new churches of any diocese in the country since the 1950s. That is in large part due to the visionary work of his suffragan, +David Jones, who became a passionate believer in church planting and led the effort, with +Lee’s full support. It gets personal here, because +Lee appointed me co-chair of the Commission on Church Planting when it was first formed about 1990. And we succeeded in creating a very positive climate of informed support for church planting, and a broad base for it, that led to the Diocese of VA starting at least one or two new churches a year throughout the 1990s. In the years just before the fiasco of the 2003 GC in Minneapolis, the Diocese of VA was up to starting 3 or 4 new churches a year. A record unmatched by any other diocese, even those with more conservative bishops than a theological moderate like +Lee.
Then the bottom fell out. Of the 15 congregations that left the Diocese of VA in late 2006 or early 2007 (11 of which were subject to the now infamous lawsuit over their property), approximately half were relatively new churches (some without their own buildings yet). Needless to say, that caused a huge backlash within the diocese that soured and poisoned the general attitude toward planting more new churches. And yet, thanks to the hard work of +Jones and many evangelical lay leaders, the Diocese had acquired a fair number of choice sites in promising areas that were being held for future church plants.
Now these empty plots of land have been, or are being sold. Alas, an impressive era of church planting (at least for TEC) is over. Too bad. But it sure was a great run while it lasted.
David Handy+
David – short of unanimity, all departures are individual departures. I’m not sure how a parish would leave. In any event, I have often thought that Peter Lee’s faults over the past five years, if they indeed are faults, are too much gentleness and tolerance toward turbulent schismatics at either extreme. He should have pushed back more openly against the more wacky elements of the national church (for whom I think he has little use), but also should have made it more unambiguous than he did that, while people can certainly leave if their consciences so dictate, they leave to find (or found) a new church and the remaining Episcopalians would be protected in their worship and their properties. His unwillingness to be blunt on this point let secessionist leaders argue that a vote to leave would be essentially cost-free, and that parishioners who love their buildings would be able to continue under new management at the same site because the Diocese would acquiesce in the taking of the properties. That such a notion was allowed to gain traction was a disservice to all parties and is the source of much waste of resources in the past two years. Those resources could have been spent by departing Episcopalians to build new churches and the continuing Episcopalians to maintain old ones, not to mention a number of other missions that would put the money nearer God’s will than can the batallions of lawyers on both sides.
I find Bishop Lee to be an honest, compassionate Bishop. I think he has served the Diocese of Virginia, the Episcopal Church, and the Christian community well. I pray he has a long, blessed, and happy retirement.
The ending part of Peter Lee’s tenure in his post was and undoubtedly will be considered a disaster. He lost his biggest, richest, and most historically important congregations and their property. He plunged his diocese into financial ruination which will only continue in the future. He reversed the successes of his early years. All because he knuckled under to KJS and DDB and broke promises which he had signed, sealed, and delivered.
Perhaps he is more to be pitied then censored.
You mean censured. I am unsure about the term pitied, as well. He has caused immeasurable suffering and immense expense for numerous people, all because he went broke his pledged word at the behest of some people in New York.
“The floor of hell is paved with the skulls of bishops.”
St. John Chrysostom
Fr. Handy – thank you for your two posts above. I almost think they should be reformatted and made a separate entry here on T19. This is a clear, compassionate assessment of the ministry of Bp. Lee.
We have mentioned this before on this blog numerous times, but I think Bp. Lee’s foresight in establishing a committee to develop a plan for departing congregations was a testimony to the side of Peter James Lee that sought God’s best in accordance with the Holy Scriptures. He brought together some very strong faithful Christians who wrestled with this subject in prayer and humility and developed a wise plan. Alas, as Irenaeus alludes to in #3, Bp. Lee buckled to the pressure brought upon him by the Presiding Bishop and her consiglieri. The Lee plan was laid aside and the litigation came. This has resulted in a considerable drain on resources on both sides. Because of this, some will not hear the good news of Christ Jesus crucified and raised. Tonight it is cold in Virginia – the temperature is below freezing. Some homeless will not be receiving comfort because of these lawsuits.
Peter Lee will be remembered for his vote against Scripture and the Anglican Instruments of Unity (and the wishes of the laity of the Diocese of Virginia) when he voted for VGR. He will be remembered for caving to craven clerics. His vision in seeking to grow the Church of Christ will probably be overshadowed by these immense twin failures.
He is a tragic figure.
“He lost his biggest, richest, and most historically important congregations and their property.” (emphasis added)
Nothing like counting those chickens early…
RE: “It is unlikely his tenure as Bishop will be defined by this moment . . . ”
Oh, I dunno. I think the Washington Post headline is a nice little summary of his time as diocesan: “Longtime Bishop Who Presided Over Va. Rift to Step Down.”
I personally don’t consider him a tragic figure. I think he was an overweeningly arrogant man confident of his self-titled notion of being a “centrist” and the Great Negotiater who grew used to his ability to move decisions slightly to the left of where they started at General Conventions, slowly enough to not alarm his traditionalists, and enough to maintain the illusion of being a “centrist” rather than the rank heretic that he was. He made a fatal error in 2003, believing that the Episcopal Church was “far enough along” for the decisions of that convention not to cause a big row and that it would all blow over. And then when he embarked on his reconciliation committee he still believed that he could pull it off — that his fantasy of being this great reconciling centrist would prevent the departures. And when he recognized belatedly that it was all going to happen — that clergy, laity, and parishes actually wanted to leave his diocese — that his “legacy” was punctured — I think he got pettishly angry, like a small child deprived of his red ball. And I think he was more than willing to depend on the mean Schori and Beers to give him the excuse he needed to lash out.
He was wrong about so much — not only the consequences of his actions, but all of the influence and persuasiveness that he believed belonged to him.
He lost both the oldest and the youngest of his parishes, and succeeded in decimating a historic diocese.
His place in history is assured. And it will not be the place that he had fancied for himself all those years that his diocesan flunkies slaved over “The Center Aisle.”
“I think the church is more focused beyond ourselves as Americans than when I first came,” Lee said yesterday at the diocese’s annual council meeting, where he announced he would be stepping down.”
And the evidence for that in the Diocese of Virginia would be exactly where, Bishop Lee? In the national consortium? In your exercise of the office of bishop in yielding to non-existent hierarchal relations to the new sheriff in town?
The curious grow curiouser!
Quite correct, DavidH (#16, above), but even if somehow TEC manages to get hold of the empty buildings they will have *paid* for them, in many senses, and heavily, both in money and prestige. The Episcopal Church is a brand-name which is not only tarnished, but it has been effectively destroyed, not only by the orthodox, but by its vengeful adherents attacking under a pretended banner of ‘fiduciary duty’ As I pointed out elsewhere, it is the duty -yes, the DUTY- of the orthodox to try to avoid leaving preaching stations for heresy for those who preach a false gospel.