It was a week of historic events for the Episcopal Church. Thanksgiving week, the time for busy highways, crowded airplanes and family gatherings, offered two extraordinary events in vastly different settings some 1,200 miles apart. On Monday we had the ecclesiastical trial court of the Episcopal Church against the Bishop of Montana. Six days later, in the Philadelphia suburb Rosemont, bishops from other parts of the Anglican Communion entered the Diocese of Pennsylvania to administer the sacrament of confirmation to more than 80 persons.

The two events took place in widely contrasting settings. The trial against the Rt. Rev. C.I. Jones was held on the third floor of a parish house in a dimly lit room which usually is the site of an alternative school. The Church of Gethsemane has had a presence in downtown Minneapolis for more than a century and now finds itself next door to one of the nation's largest shelters for the homeless. At Rosemont, in the lovely Church of the Good Shepherd, a service of confirmation took place. The church, situated in Philadelphia's posh Main Line, welcomed the primates of two Anglican provinces and bishops from four others for a traditional service of Evensong and Confirmation.

The significance of the trial court apparently was lost on many. Even though it was announced that the hearing would be open to the public, only a scant few were in attendance - eight judges, Bishop Jones and his wife with three supporters, the complainant and her husband with an attorney and two members of the clergy, six members of the media, the rector and a few volunteers from the host church, the church attorneys, Bishop Jones' attorney, the clerk of court, a court reporter and two lay assessors. That's about 35. Meanwhile, in Rosemont, the church filled quickly. At 5 p.m., one hour before the time of service, the nave was 90 percent full. People spilled into an adjoining chapel by 5:30, and by 5:45 the congregation included a large number of persons standing along both walls and in the back - about 700 in all. Fire marshals would have had a field day.

The biggest contrasts were the moods of the two places. In Minneapolis, it was somber. There was no joy to be found in trying a bishop who already admitted to having an adulterous affair with a parishioner nearly 20 years ago. No one wanted to see the woman who brought the case to the church suffer any more than she already had. No one wanted to see a bishop potentially brought down by his indiscretions and bad judgment. In the East, there was a sense of joy like few I have encountered. Besides the nervous excitement typical of confirmands, there was an air of anticipation - a buzz if you will - that something important, something good, was about to happen. At the processional hymn, Old 100th, the congregation belted out the words with gusto and unbounded joy.

Finally, there is the significance of the two events which would make them historic. The trial court was the more obvious. There have been only two similar proceedings since 1900. In one, the bishop wound up being deposed. In the other, charges were dropped before the case reached the trial stage. Regardless of how the ecclesiastical court rules in the C.I. Jones case, this one will be remembered as the first case involving a bishop under the church's revised Title IV canons. The significance in Rosemont also is clear. A primate from one Anglican province entering another province in order to administer confirmation in a parish which is at odds with its bishop is unprecedented. "It's a historic occasion," said Bishop Sinclair. He got that right. A historic week, too. It may be some time before we see another like it.

David Kalvelage, executive editor