Bishop Allin Unable to Appear at Washington Trial
Diocesan Press Service. April 28, 1975 [75157]
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- The Rt. Rev. John M. Allin, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, has notified an ecclesiastical court in the Diocese of Washington (D.C.) that he is "unable to accept the invitation" to offer testimony in the trial of the Rev. William Wendt.
Father Wendt is to appear for trial beginning April 30 on charges arising from his permitting the Rev. Alison Cheek of Virginia to celebrate the Eucharist at his church, St. Stephen and the Incarnation, in Washington, D.C., last November. Ms. Cheek is one of 11 women deacons who took part in an irregular service of ordination to the priesthood last July 29. In August the House of Bishops said "that the necessary conditions for valid ordination to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church were not fulfilled" in that service.
Bishop Allin said he was declining to accept Father Wendt's invitation to testify "in view of my commitments from April 30 through May 4 in Canada and the Dioceses of Arizona and Missouri."
Bishop Allin has a long-standing invitation to give the commencement address at Trinity College, Toronto, and an appointment to meet with the Most Rev. Edward W. Scott, Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, and the Most Rev. Donald Coggan, Archbishop of Canterbury. That meeting is to be followed by a speaking commitment at the Arizona diocesan convention and by the scheduled consecration of the bishop-elect of the Diocese of Missouri.
Bishop Allin also informed the court, " I have no personal knowledge of any facts bearing on the charges brought in the Diocese of Washington, D.C., against Father Wendt and, therefore, doubt that I could give any relevant testimony." Bishop Allin said that he has been "advised, however, that provision is made in our Canons for the taking of testimony of absent witnesses by deposition. Should Father Wendt or the Ecclesiastical Court determine that I might be able to give pertinent testimony," he added, "I suggest the possibility of that being accomplished by deposition. "