Panel to present summary report on Circleville church case March 19
The Layman Online, February 22, 2002
An administrative commission investigating a request by Circleville Presbyterian Church in Circleville, N.Y., to leave the Presbyterian Church (USA) is scheduled to present a summary report on the case March 19.
The report will be presented during a meeting of the Hudson River Presbytery at South Salem Presbyterian Church in South Salem, N.Y. The meeting will begin at 9 a.m.
Over the objections of the pastor and congregation, the presbytery voted Jan. 29 to establish the commission. The results of a written ballot were 123 votes yes, 21 no and two abstentions.
Faced with the possibility that its survival requires separation from the denomination, the congregation had voted 72-2 on Dec. 30 to affiliate with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. Three members of the Circleville congregation abstained from voting.
Circleville was one of the first congregations in New York to join the Confessing Church Movement within the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Previously, Pastor Leo Jaloszynski told The Layman Online that he and the elders had hoped the Confessing Church Movement would provide an evangelical buffer to counter some of the problems created by the presbytery and the denomination.
Circleville is a congregation with a deep commitment to evangelical missions and social ministries. The congregation has 100 members, but more than 200 attend worship services. Contributions average in excess of $2,500 per member annually – more than triple the denomination’s per-capita giving.
The Presbytery of Hudson River is one of the most liberal presbyteries in the nation. Nearly 80 percent of the commissioners voting at a recent meeting of the presbytery opposed the PCUSA’s “fidelity/chastity” ordination standard. Some pastors and sessions have said they are openly defying the standard.
The presbytery moved into the PCUSA’s national limelight in 1999 when it authorized ministers to conduct services to bless same-gender couples.
Since then, several ministers in the presbytery have promoted the services to bless same-gender couples. That prompted Circleville to pay for a full-page advertisement in Circleville’s local newspaper to set itself apart theologically from those congregations.
Some members have left the Circleville church and others have reduced their contributions. Because of declining gifts, Circleville has cut its worship services from two on Sunday mornings to one (to save on heating costs) and stopped construction of its 7,500-square-foot family life center that is two-thirds complete.
“We’re losing good people,” Jaloszynski said.
He said a member of the presbytery’s council hinted that the congregation might seek to leave the denomination and affiliate with the more evangelical EPC. “As soon as they hinted that, we immediately took it as the parting of the sea,” he said, emphasizing that the Evangelical Presbyterian Church has not courted Circleville. The EPC, which is comprised of 190 congregations, has only two congregations in New York.
Jaloszynski said one of the concerns among members of his session and the congregation is that there is no discipline in the presbytery. “There are 16 churches in open opposition to the Book of Order,” he said.
Jaloszynski’s concern is being echoed across the denomination in the wake of a decision by Redwoods Presbytery in California to ordain Kathleen Morrison. Morrison has defied the PCUSA Constitution by declaring herself a lesbian in a “partnership,” which, she told The San Francisco Chronicle, includes sexual activity.
Like Circleville, many Presbyterian congregations are asking why they should remain in a denomination whose leaders will not protect and defend the constitution.