The ECUSA “deposed” 61 priests and deacons in California's Central Valley area because they joined with former Bishop John David Schofield as he aligned with the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone due to the ECUSA's abandonment of Scriptural authority.
-- From "Episcopal Church ousts 61 clergy in bishop dispute" Associated Press 5/28/09
National leaders of the Episcopal Church have ousted 61 clergy who aligned with a former bishop in California when he broke with the national church in a dispute over the Bible and homosexuality. Former Bishop John-David Schofield led the Diocese of San Joaquin to become the first full diocese to secede from the U.S. denomination in 2007. Four years earlier, Episcopalians consecrated their first openly gay bishop, setting off a wide-ranging debate within the church and upsetting conservative congregations.
From "Episcopal Church fires 61 Central Valley priests" posted at Central Valley Business Times 5/27/09
Mr. Schofield was deposed in March 2008.
He and the various priests and deacons objected to the Episcopal Church’s ordination of gays to the priesthood among other things, "refusing to recognize the authority of the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church and of the Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church," as the church puts it.
The clergy who have been fired had six months to deny their abandonment, recant, or renounce their ministry in the Episcopal Church, according to the diocese.
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