Battle Over Rector Drives Wedge Into Echo Park Church : Tiny Congregation’s Dispute Forces Factions to Divide for Sunday Rites

What causes wars, and what causes fightings among you? Is it not your passions that are at war in your members?

The Epistle of James, 3:16-4:6

When that Epistle was read at St. Athanasius Episcopal Church in Echo Park on Sunday, many parishioners felt the shock of recognition. There is, after all, a war raging in the parish.

The war centers around whether or not the Rev. Ian Mitchell should remain as rector of what is the oldest Protestant congregation in Los Angeles. But it has also raised wider issues of obedience to the bishop, the church’s role in the Latino and homosexual communities and the authority of civil courts in parish matters.

The dispute has so divided the small congregation that Superior Court Judge John L. Cole last week directed the two sides to share the church property--wooden turn-of-the-century buildings on the eastern shore of Echo Park lake--for simultaneous, rival services until the matter can be heard in court. On alternate Sundays, one side is supposed to use the lovely sanctuary, rich in stained-glass, while the other group holds Mass next door in the drab parish hall. The judge also told both sides not to bring security guards to the church or to hold organizing meetings there. During services 10 days ago, a guard hired by Mitchell shouted at the former rector of the parish and the diocese’s archdeacon and shoved them out of the sanctuary. Mitchell now calls that “a sorry spectacle” and has apologized. Mitchell, who has a severe limp because of childhood polio, said he feared that the archdeacon would drag him from the altar.

Core of Dispute

Mitchell said that he is being forced out because he attracted minorities and homosexuals to a declining parish; the diocese denies that, saying that it has never recognized Mitchell as rector because he has no license to head a congregation.

“It is an ugly business,” James Griffin, a parishioner and attorney who is representing Mitchell in court, said of the whole situation. “This would be ridiculous if it took place in Afghanistan, much less among so-called Christian people.”

As for the Epistle referring to arguments among early Christians, its reading by both sides of the dispute was coincidental, part of all Episcopal services last Sunday. But the Rev. Frank Kelley, the former rector who has been drawn into the fray, said he thinks that the coincidence has special meaning for St. Athanasius. “It’s interesting that the Bible speaks to things when appropriate if people will just listen,” he said.

The seeds of the dispute were sown more than two years ago, when, after Kelley’s retirement, Mitchell began to conduct services at St. Athanasius as a temporary substitute sent by the diocese of Los Angeles. Mitchell had only a temporary license to fill in, but that license was subsequently withdrawn after Bishop Robert Rusack learned that Mitchell had been divorced and had remarried without obtaining his permission, diocesan officials said.

Archdeacon Terence Lynberg said the parish should have chosen a rector from a list of names submitted by the bishop. But even though Mitchell’s name was not listed, the parish vestry voted him rector in 1983.

Mitchell, 58, a convivial man who also has had a career as a composer-performer of ecclesiastical and folk music, said the diocese knew of his remarriage when he was working as a substitute. The matter was raised only because “the bishop had his own man he wanted to be rector,” he said. Furthermore, he claimed, a parish vestry is free to choose from outside that list.

For two years, Mitchell functioned as rector and the diocese took no formal action against him. But meanwhile, he apparently began to annoy some vestry members. “I suppose it was a lack of leadership,” said Ethel West, one of few vestry members who would talk to The Times.

Booth at Street Fair

Mitchell’s supporters claim that he ruffled feathers of a so-called Old Guard, primarily Anglo, segment in the parish by encouraging more activities with the large Latino and homosexual populations in the Echo Park-Silver Lake area. Mitchell loyalists claim some congregants did not like the fact that he rented space again last year to El Centro del Pueblo, a youth program for Latino gang members that began at the church under Kelley and later moved.

A larger crisis hit, Mitchell said, when he rented a booth to raffle homemade quilts at last month’s Sunset Junction Street Fair, an annual event designed to promote understanding between homosexuals and other residents. He accused some members of the vestry of being on “a gay hunt” and said that they are resentful that homosexuals have contributed to the growth in the number of people at Sunday services from about 20 people two years ago to about 40 now.

On Sept. 8, a majority of the vestry voted to oust Mitchell. The bishop put Lynberg temporarily in charge and asked Kelley to tend to pastoral needs of parishioners. The church’s bank accounts were frozen. Mitchell said those actions violate canon law, which he said forbids the removal of a rector against his will without a diocesan hearing.

“The vestry members are being accused of terribly unfair things,” Lynberg said, referring to the discrimination charges. “We have every intention of keeping El Centro and have no intention of closing the door to gays.”

Lynberg called Mitchell “an interesting person of many talents.” But the archdeacon stressed that Mitchell, while still a priest, is not licensed to head a congregation in any diocese in the nation. Mitchell’s last such license, he said, was in Utah, where Mitchell worked at a church on an Indian reservation.

About 18 years ago, Mitchell lost his Utah affiliation because, after embarking on his musical career, he did not keep in regular contact with the bishop there, as required, according to Robert Gordon, executive assistant to E. Otis Charles, bishop of Utah.

The diocese on Friday asked Judge Cole for a restraining order forbidding Mitchell, among other things, from conducting services at the church. The judge declined and in his chambers, according to both sides, said he hopes that the dispute can be settled out of court. However, he scheduled a full hearing for Oct. 30, at which Mitchell’s side is prepared to request its own restraining order against the diocese.

Mitchell’s supporters had planned to hold an election last Sunday to reconstitute the vestry board. But that was forbidden by the judge.

Instead, two Masses were said within about 15 feet of each other, with a sign about the judge’s decision hanging between them. About 20 people attended the service officiated at by Lynberg and Kelley in the sanctuary. Next door, in the parish hall, about 40 people prayed, including a number of El Centro officials and non-parishioners who said they showed up in support of Mitchell.

Afterward, people talking in hushed voices agreed that no matter how the dispute is resolved, it will be difficult to put the congregation back together.

“The parish will be damaged for years,” Kelley said sadly. “A long history of healing will have to take place.”