Amid reaction to the removal of Episcopal Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh from ministry, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church praised plans by some local Episcopalians to remain with the Episcopal Church even if the majority of the diocese votes to secede and join an Anglican province in South America.

"Our understanding is that the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh will not go away, even if the convention takes a canonically inappropriate vote to secede," Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said in a teleconference yesterday.

The diocesan vote is scheduled for Oct. 4. When the U.S. bishops voted 88-35 Thursday to authorize Bishop Jefferts Schori to depose Bishop Duncan, the more theologically conservative Argentina-based Province of the Southern Cone made him a bishop-at-large. If the Pittsburgh diocese votes to secede into the Southern Cone, the secessionists are expected to re-elect him as their bishop.

Local Episcopalians who want to remain in the U.S. Church have said that one member of the diocesan Standing Committee -- which governs in the absence of a bishop -- is opposed to secession and will immediately begin to reconstitute a reorganized Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh that would choose its own leadership.

The 2.2 million-member Episcopal Church is the U.S. province of the 77 million-member Anglican Communion. Bishop Duncan and others believe that the U.S. church no longer firmly upholds classic Christian doctrines on the mission and identity of Jesus, the authority of the Bible and sexual ethics.

Decades of contention came to a crisis in 2003, when the U.S. church accepted a partnered gay bishop. This increased what had been a smaller movement among conservatives to realign with more theologically conservative provinces in the global South. The vote to depose Bishop Duncan was because the bishops deemed that his plan to realign violated the discipline of the Episcopal Church.

Bishop Jefferts Schori said she intended to depose Bishop Duncan "promptly" but not before attempting to speak with him.

At the same teleconference, Bishop Michael Smith of North Dakota explained that he and Bishop Mark Lawrence of South Carolina -- a former Pittsburgh priest -- had each tried to argue that the attempt to depose Bishop Duncan would violate church law but that at least two-thirds of the bishops voted to uphold the presiding bishop.

"In our system there is no Supreme Court," Bishop Smith said. "The way we [settle canonical disputes] is in a context of a meeting, where we are free to challenge the presider. We did that, but we were overruled."

Bishop Duncan has been active in Christian Associates of Southwestern Pennsylvania, the region's major ecumenical organization. Its Council of Bishops has agreed to welcome bishops of both a local Anglican diocese of the Southern Cone and a continuing Episcopal Diocese, said the Rev. Donald Green, the executive director.

"I don't see it as my role or the Council of Bishops' role to take sides, but to extend the hand of welcome to both parties," he said.

Bishop David Zubik of the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh said he was "very sorry" to learn of the action against Bishop Duncan.

"My heart aches for the Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh. Any time there is division in the church it hurts not only the Episcopal Church, in this case, but all Christians. I have profound respect for Bishop Duncan. He is a good friend and a courageous leader," he said.

Statements of support for Bishop Duncan from Anglican leaders in the Global South, many of who have harshly criticized theologically liberal trends in the U.S. church, began to appear yesterday.

Archbishops Gregory Venables of the Southern Cone, Drexel Gomez of the West Indies and Benjamin Nzimbi of Kenya said they considered Bishop Duncan's deposition "invalid."

"We continue to recognize the fidelity and validity of Bishop Duncan's orders, role, and ministry," they wrote.

Archbishop Mouneer Anis, leader of the Anglican Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East hailed Bishop Duncan as a martyr.

"It is with great joy that I welcome you alongside the ranks of St. Athanasius, who, as Bishop of Alexandria, was deposed and exiled from his see. St. Athanasius did not waver and stood firm. History proved that his stance for orthodoxy was not in vain. I trust it will do the same for you! So please count it as honor my brother," he wrote to Bishop Duncan.