The diocese considers this a small victory, and the Anglican District refuses to view it as a total loss.
“On reflection, the ruling actually supports several of the things that we were claiming, most significantly that there has in fact been a division in the church,” said Jim Oakes, chairman of the Anglican District of Virginia. “This is a very long way from a situation in which they won and we lost.”
Henry Burt, secretary of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, said, “There’s no question that several of our congregations left the diocese. But this is not a fractured church.”
Burt said the division didn’t count as an official split in the church because “these churches decided to leave for an organization that had been set up before they decided to leave.”
Until the final decision, both sides will remain in limbo.