Review Panel Appointed in Dispute Over Priest's Election as Rector of Southern Virginia Parish
Episcopal News Service. September 26, 1996 [96-1565]
(ENS) Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning has convened a panel of five bishops to review a complaint brought against Bishop Frank H. Vest, Jr., of the Diocese of Southern Virginia for refusing to approve the election of a priest as rector of a parish in his diocese.
Members of Christ Church in Danville, Virginia, and two priests of the Diocese of Southern Virginia lodged the complaint claiming that Vest has violated the laws of the Episcopal Church by refusing to accept the church's call to the Rev. Peter Toon.
Toon, formerly of the Diocese of Quincy, was received into the Episcopal Church from the Church of England in 1991. He has been an advocate of "traditionalist" positions opposed to such changes in the Episcopal Church as the ordination of women.
The panel is chaired by Bishop John C. Buchanan of the Diocese of West Missouri, and includes Bishops C. Christopher Epting of Iowa, Larry E. Maze of Arkansas, Russell E. Jacobus of Fond du Lac, and James M. Coleman of West Tennessee.
If the panel determines that the charge, if proven true, would constitute a violation of Episcopal Church disciplinary canons, a second panel called a board of inquiry will be appointed. The board of inquiry, made up of clergy and laity, will determine whether there are sufficient facts to support the charge.
Only after those two panels have reviewed the charge would it be considered by the Court for the Trial of a Bishop, a body of nine bishops that would hear the case.
A response to the charge was expected from Vest in September, but he was granted an extension to the end of the month. The parties bringing the charge would then have 15 days to file a response to Vest's statement.