If it did not succeed for Bishop Dionisije Milivojevich, why should that maneuver succeed for Bishop Jerry Lamb? What right, under the Serbian Orthodox decision, does anyone have to come into a secular court and seek a declaration that Bishop Schofield has been duly and properly deposed, and is no longer the “Bishop of San Joaquin”?<\/p>\n
And, even more pertinent to the issues at hand, who is to say that the Rt. Rev. Jerry A. Lamb is the proper person even to bring such a claim? If we are to look only to the Episcopal Church (USA) to say who is one of its bishops, then as already mentioned, what is to stop the Episcopal Church from picking out any loyal parishioner and saying: “You are now ‘the Bishop of San Joaquin.’ Please sign this lawsuit for us. Thank you.”<\/p>\n
The answer to that last question is simply what has already been noted: the Constitution and Canons of the Diocese of San Joaquin, as duly enacted and adopted over the years, are the only authority that can specify just who is and who is not a Bishop of that Diocese. Unless and until they have been followed to the letter, the defendants contend that there is no person who can in law (as opposed to whatever the Episcopal Church (USA) wants to do) claim to be that Bishop. And since they were not followed in the case of the Rt. Rev. Jerry A. Lamb, he cannot, they maintain, be entitled to bring a suit in law as “the Episcopal Bishop of San Joaquin.”<\/p>\n