The ongoing division within The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion “is of the first magnitude,” according to Fairfax, Virginia Circuit Court Judge Randy I. Bellows, who issued a preliminary ruling April 3 in favor of 11 congregations which sought to leave the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia after holding parish votes in 2006. Judge Bellows will hear oral arguments on the constitutionality of the state statute on May 28. A rarely used Virginia statute enacted in the aftermath of the Civil War permits individual congregations to determine by majority vote what to do with local church property in the event of a schism.