CHARLESTON – A motion filed today asks the U.S. District Court to grant a preliminary injunction to stop Mark Lawrence from using the name and marks of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina and from representing that his activities are associated with the diocese.Confusion is the name of the game played by Mark Lawrence. The former bishop in The Episcopal Church left the church, but he still wants to claim the name of the diocese he and his followers left behind. Why?
The Right Reverend Charles G. vonRosenberg, the person who is actually recognized as the Bishop of the Diocese by The Episcopal Church, needs immediate relief to prevent Bishop Lawrence from further undermining his leadership of the diocese, according to a memorandum filed with the motion.
Bishop Lawrence’s actions violate the federal trademark law known as the Lanham Act, misleading worshipers and donors, causing confusion, and harming the reputation of the diocese, the memo says.
“In holding himself out as the representative of the Diocese and in using the Diocese’s exact marks, there is no doubt that Bishop Lawrence has endeavored to create the very public confusion that the Lanham Act was designed to prohibit,” the memo says.
Matthew D. McGill, an attorney representing the continuing diocese says:Exactly. And further;
“Bishop Lawrence had every right to leave The Episcopal Church, but he can’t take the Diocese’s name and intellectual property with him,” said McGill, who practices in his firm’s constitutional law and intellectual property groups. “The Diocese is part of The Episcopal Church. The notion that Bishop Lawrence and his followers can decide to dissociate the Diocese from the Church and keep it for themselves is foreclosed by an unbroken line of Supreme Court precedent stretching back at least 140 years.”
Affidavits filed on March 7 in support of the case include statements from:Read the entire news report at the diocesan website.
- Dr. Walter Edgar, Professor of History at the University of South Carolina and author of “South Carolina: A History,” who notes that there is no historical support for the notion that the Diocese of South Carolina was one of the “founders” of The Episcopal Church, or that its formation predates the establishment of The Episcopal Church. In fact, “it was the actions of the organizers of The Episcopal Church that actually precipitated the formation of a structure for the parishes in South Carolina,” Dr. Edgar writes. “The South Carolina organization did not even have a bishop until 1795, six years after the formation of The Episcopal Church.” The Episcopal Church’s Constitution was adopted in 1789, and the Diocese of South Carolina acceded to that Constitution in 1790. That accession stayed in place continuously, Dr. Edgar noted, until Bishop Lawrence and others aligned with him took actions that purported to remove the accession clause and other references to The Episcopal Church from the diocese’s Constitution and Canons. (My emphasis)
Dr Edgar sheds much light on the history of the diocese, which has been spun in an entirely different direction by Mark Lawrence and his followers.
The true diocese of The Episcopal Church and the schismatics both meet in convention this weekend. I offer my prayers.
UPDATE: There's joy and thanksgiving in The Episcopal Church in South Carolina. Check out the diocesan Facebook page for pictures and reports on the convention this weekend, especially the pictures of the representatives from St Mark's Port Royal, the newest mission in the diocese. St Mark's appealed for mission status for years, but Mark Lawrence never granted their request.
