The Very Rev. Mark J. Lawrence was consecrated Bishop of South Carolina Jan. 26 during a service choreographed to demonstrate that the diocese is determined to build new relationships not primarily based on denominational affiliation, but based instead on “mutual recognisability.”
 
The Cathedral Church of St. Luke and St. Paul in Charleston was filled to its 1,100 capacity. Additional participants viewed the consecration service by video link at two other churches in Charleston, and via live video of the service broadcast over the internet.
 
The Rt. Rev. Clifton Daniel III, Bishop of East Carolina and president of Province 4, was the chief consecrator. Co-consecrators were: the Rt. Rev. Edward L. Salmon, Jr., retired Bishop of South Carolina; the Rt. Rev. C. FitzSimons Allison, retired Bishop of South Carolina; the Rt. Rev. Michael Scott-Joynt, Bishop of Winchester in the Church of England; the Rt. Rev. Keith L. Ackerman, Bishop of Quincy; and the Rt. Rev. Julio Cesar Holguin, Bishop of the Dominican Republic.
 
In all, some 40 bishops participated, including the Rt. Rev. Benjamin A. Kwashi, Bishop of Jos in the Anglican Church of Nigeria; the Rt. Rev. Anthony Burton, Bishop of Saskatchewan in the Anglican Church of Canada; the Rt. Rev. John H. Rodgers, interim dean of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry and retired missionary bishop for the Anglican Mission in the Americas; and the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan, Bishop of Pittsburgh and moderator of the Anglican Communion Network. The preacher was the Rt. Rev. Alden Hathaway, retired Bishop of Pittsburgh. As a young priest, Bishop Lawrence served under Bishop Hathaway. Bishop Lawrence is the first graduate of Trinity seminary to be consecrated a bishop of The Episcopal Church.
 
The consecration brings to a close a prolonged and canonically tortuous path for the Diocese of South Carolina and for Bishop Lawrence, who was nearly unanimously elected bishop of the diocese twice. Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori ruled the first election invalid after she determined that the diocese did not receive the canonically required consent from a majority of standing committees within the specified time frame.
 
“In the months since the very nearly unanimous re-election of the Very Rev. Mark Lawrence as bishop-designate of South Carolina, polarization has continued apace, but [Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan] Williams’ Advent Letter now points us toward resurrection,” said the Very Rev. William N. McKeachie, dean of St. Luke and St. Paul and host for the consecration.
 
In an interview after the consecration with The Living Church, Dean McKeachie referred to a statement he recently published on the internet for insight into the likely near-term future of the diocese. “Our hope in South Carolina is that Mark Lawrence’s consecration, along with the present Archbishop of Canterbury’s willingness to follow his predecessor’s lead, will bear fruit at Lambeth 2008 in a clear and definitive affirmation, on the part of the vast majority of bishops present, that the Anglican Communion is (in Archbishop Williams’ words) ‘truly a gift of God to the wholeness of Christ’s Church’.”
 
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