Bishop Blocks Move of 13th-Century Church to Corona del Mar

Plans to dismantle the remains of a small, 13th-Century church in the English countryside and rebuild it in Corona del Mar were dealt an apparently fatal blow in London Thursday.

Anglican church officials, reportedly unhappy about the prospect of permitting the church to go to a breakaway congregation of the U.S. Episcopal Church, barred the sale of St. Bartholomew’s of Covenham to the Orange County group.

Sir Douglas Lovelock, a member of a commission that controls the finances of the state Church of England and is responsible for the upkeep of its buildings, said in a telephone interview that the panel decided “to leave it to the Bishop of Lincoln.” And the bishop, the Rt. Rev. Simon Phipps, “wasn’t happy about the proposal,” Lovelock said.

As a result, “the commissioners decided not to intervene,” he said.

U.S. Episcopalians, who with the Church of England belong to the worldwide Anglican Communion, split over changes in their liturgy and the ordination of women priests. Among those who broke away was the Diocese of Christ the King, which includes the Corona del Mar congregation.

Advised on Sale

The Rev. David Lambert, rector of St. Bartholomew’s, said he believes that Phipps advised the commissioners not to approve the sale because of the split.

“I was told by our diocesan secretary today that the commissioners did not want to embarrass the bishop in California, as the people who wanted to buy St. Bartholomew’s Church at Covenham belong to the breakaway Continuing Episcopal Church,” Lambert told the Associated Press in London.

St. Bartholomew’s is in the village of Covenham, population 253, about 130 miles north of London near England’s east coast.

The proposal to move it was made by the 64-member congregation of St. Matthew’s-by-the-Sea in Corona del Mar.

The Rev. Samuel Scheibler, formerly assistant pastor of the Corona del Mar congregation, was the main force behind the proposal and was full of confidence when he announced last January that lower level Church of England officials had given preliminary approval to the plan.

‘Sticking Points’

At that time, he said he expected to receive documents of formal bestowal of the church soon. He said there had been some “sticking points” in negotiations, among them the feelings of some villagers.

“The formal name of the village is Covenham, St. Bartholomew’s. Without St. Bartholomew’s, it loses some of its identity,” Scheibler said.

“It’s one thing for it to be a British ruin, but it is something else for it to be an American church.”

Scheibler said in January that he had raised enough money from his small but well-to-do congregation to pay for the dismantling of the old church. He estimated the cost would be about $35,000. Shipping costs would have been extra, but he said the money could be raised.

Scheibler agreed Thursday that the plan eventually was defeated by the formal opposition of the Episcopal Church in the United States, which claims to be the only valid representative of British Anglicanism in North America.

“We claim to be equally valid, but the English apparently didn’t buy that,” Scheibler said. “That’s their right.”

Political Morass

“At this point, I’m just plain sick of it,” Scheibler added. “It’s not really over this little church in the English countryside. It’s whether this church has the right to call itself Anglican. That’s what the conflict has become. I gave up on the whole thing because it had become such a political morass that it was beginning to damage our public image as men of God.”

The church, built in 1257, is of Gothic, cruciform (cross-shaped) architecture and barely larger than an Orange County ranch-style house. It has remained unchanged except for repairs to its limestone blocks during the 16th Century and the addition of a stained-glass window in 1852.

The church was declared “redundant” by Anglican Church authorities in 1978 after villagers had to decide which of their two ancient parish churches they wanted to preserve. That declaration means that unless an alternate use is found for the deteriorated building, it must be demolished, church officials have said.

Sermon in Stone

Scheibler had said that the idea of transplanting the church “makes no sense divorced from the theological reasons for doing it. Because we are traditionalists, we believe that it’s important to communicate honestly and emphatically our roots in historic British Christianity. Therefore, this project is for us a sermon--literally a sermon in stone.”

The church is within Lincolnshire, the equivalent of a county, and is therefore within Phipps’ jurisdiction.

“The commission doesn’t go around overruling bishops unless there is a very strong interest on its part,” Lovelock said.

Commissioners heard arguments “both in favor and against and decided there was no strong enough interest on their part” to take a hand in the matter, Lovelock said.

Phipps could not be reached for comment.

Lambert, Rector of Fotherby and in charge of 10 other Lincolnshire churches, including Covenham, told the Associated Press that St. Bartholomew’s needed 30,000 pounds (then $55,000) for renovation 10 years ago that wasn’t forthcoming, “and now it must be double that” (more than $89,000 at the current, lower exchange rate).

Lambert said there are now three possibilities for St. Bartholomew’s.

“The commissioners may pass it to their Redundant Churches Fund, which would have to maintain it for future use. Or they would decide on an alternative use for the building, or demolish it, wholly or partially.

“I think it will eventually come down once archeologists have examined it thoroughly, and then they will excavate the site for evidence of earlier religious use.

“The church is not considered of sufficient historical or artistic merit to be worth preserving in relation to the amount of money needed,” Lambert said.