Updated again Sunday morning
Episcopal News Service has a further detailed report, Pittsburgh convention approves first reading of constitutional changes.
The Living Church has an extremely short report.
Newspapers:
New York Times Pittsburgh Episcopal Diocese Votes to Leave the Church
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Episcopal Diocese votes to leave
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Episcopal bishop won’t ‘abandon’ his local sheep
Associated Press Pittsburgh Diocese backs a split
Press Releases:
Progresssive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh Chooses Path to Separation
Update
Apologies for the earlier erroneous information. I wrote earlier:
How close was this vote? Read this.
We have opened the way to seeking membership in another province of the Anglican Communion, should delegates so decide a year from now. But how significant a single vote can can be. We passed it 109-24 in the clerical order (the usual supermajority), but by 118 to 58 in the lay order (with one abstention). One switch from “aye” to “nay” and we would have lacked the requisite two-thirds majority…
This turns out to be incorrect. Only simple majorities are required. The Pittsburgh constitution reads:
Article XV
Alteration of the Constitution
This Constitution, or any part thereof, may be altered in the following manner only: The proposed alteration or amendment shall be submitted in writing to the Annual Convention, and if approved by a majority of each Order, shall lie over to the next Annual Convention, and if again approved, by a majority of each Order, the Constitution shall then stand altered or amended as proposed.
So the resolution to get ready to leave passed by ONE VOTE in the Lay House & it is written in such as way as to argue, “This isn’t illegal yet, but by the second reading we will fill in the blank & no longer be under TEC’s Constitutions and Canons anyway.”
Can they get away with it?
Stay tuned, I suppose …
Read the comments. It takes a majority at two successive conventions to amend the Constitution, not a super majority. They had plenty more votes than they needed.
A blogger (4May1535+) at Mark Harris’s “Preludium” raises an interesting question about Robert Duncan’s signing his brief, bizarre letter to PB Jefferts Schori as “Bob Pittsburgh”. The blogger asks whether “the custom of signing with one’s diocese in place of one’s surname comes, formally or informally, from the character of dioceses as peerages in the UK, a character which no American diocese possesses.”
I also am curious as to how many, if any, other US bishops sign in this way (if so, who?) and how widespread the practice is outside the Church of England.
Thanks ruidh, I have amended the article accordingly.
The custom has pretty much disappeared in Canada at any event.
“The custom has pretty much disappeared in Canada at any event.”
Not here it hasn’t. Cyrus Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador shows up in these parts. And I don’t care about the clunkiness of the appelation, God knew what He was doing when He made Cy a bishop!
John Burt and James Moody regularly signed +John Ohio and +James Ohio on documents at the conventions.