(Via email–KSH)
Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
To file under “we-should’ve-seen-that-coming”…
…(On September 1, 2022)..the Episcopal Church and The Episcopal Church in South Carolina filed a Petition for Reconsideration and Rehearing with the South Carolina Supreme Court asking the Court to reverse their ruling regarding the property rights of two parishes whose rights they had affirmed in their August 17 ruling.
Those parishes are: Old St Andrew’s, Charleston, and the Church of the Holy Cross, Stateburg.
Please join me in praying the Court will deny this final effort and, once and for all, put this case to rest.
Additionally, The Church of the Good Shepherd, Charleston, whose property rights the Court denied in their August 17 ruling, filed a Petition for Rehearing asking the Court to reconsider that ruling.
We’ll pray that the Court will reverse that earlier ruling and affirm the property rights of Good Shepherd.
With me, you are likely tired of the back-and-forth and wondering if this will ever end. It will. Someday, in the not too distant future, I trust these matters will be behind us, and we will move forward—whatever the outcome—into ministry without this distraction. Until then, we do well to heed St Paul’s advice to: “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, and be constant in prayer.” (Rom 12.12) Never losing sight of the fact that, “…you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” That truth can never change.
Blessings,
–The Rt Revd Chip Edgar is bishop of the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina