As the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh neared a split, Betsy Hetzler could not follow her beloved Church of the Atonement in Carnegie out of the Episcopal Church.

She moved to the Church of the Nativity in Crafton, but she still supports Atonement's rummage sales and collects the baby items that it gives to her favorite charity.

"I have friends there, but I feel a release not being there any more. My heart is in the parish where I belong now," she said.

Such words come from both sides after the Oct. 4 vote by the Diocese of Pittsburgh to secede from the 2.1 million-member Episcopal Church, one of 38 provinces in the 80 million-member Anglican Communion, a global body of churches that grew out of the Church of England. The vote hinged on whether the denomination had abandoned biblical faith in matters ranging from salvation to sexuality.

There is sadness over broken relationships and anger over property litigation. But relations are more amicable than in most other fractured dioceses.

Both are called the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, though the 57-parish Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh (Anglican) isn't affiliated with the Episcopal Church. It is part of the newly formed Anglican Church in North America, whose spiritual leader is Archbishop Robert Duncan, of Pittsburgh.

"The Lord is blessing us. There aren't any glum faces around here," Archbishop Duncan said.

While Archbishop Duncan builds a 100,000-member international body from scratch, Bishop Robert Johnson ministers part time to the 28-parish diocese that remains in the Episcopal Church. It now has an office in Monroeville.

"When I arrived it was just me -- a bishop, a cell phone and a car. It was like being a missionary bishop," said Bishop Johnson, the retired bishop of Western North Carolina.

When he visits parishes, "I don't talk about the problems we face in this diocese unless they ask me. I find that most people are focused forward," he said.

Some of those caught in the split faced painful choices.

Susan Pollard believed that the Episcopal Church had lost its biblical moorings. But her parish, St. Paul's in Mount Lebanon, remained Episcopal, and her husband is a priest who assisted at St. Paul's and another Episcopal parish, Christ Church in Ross.

She felt that St. Paul's had moved too far to the theological left. She could have been happy at Christ Church, but it was too far from their home in Upper St. Clair. She moved to Trinity in Washington, and worships in the Anglican diocese while her husband works in the Episcopal diocese.

"St. Paul's no longer represented what we believed in. Toward the end there were people who weren't talking to me, just because my views were known to be a little more traditional," she said.

Another member of St. Paul's, Doug Toth, was a trustee of the original diocese who opposed secession. He said he resigned that post after learning he might be held personally liable in a lawsuit filed against the diocese by other opponents of secession. He felt threatened by his allies.

"I don't get involved any more. I go to church, I worship quietly, I keep my opinions to myself and I leave," he said.

Jim Wilson, a member of the Anglican diocesan council and member of the Church of the Ascension in Oakland, reluctantly followed his bishop and parish out of the Episcopal Church. He still has lunch with old friends who are leaders in the Episcopal diocese.

"It reminds me of the stories from World War I, where a truce was called for Christmas and soldiers from both sides met in the middle of no man's land to sing carols before they went back to shooting each other," he said, in a reference to the lawsuit. "There is tremendous personal sadness. I love those people."

For diocesan leaders, litigation colors all conversations with friends on the other side, said the Rev. Karen Stevenson, chairman of the standing committee of the Anglican diocese.

"It's hard to pursue the reconciliation that we want to have as fellow Christians because we feel we have to check with the lawyers to make sure we're not setting some precedent," she said.

Due to the litigation, the financial services firm Morgan Stanley froze diocesan trust funds pending a decision by an Allegheny County Common Pleas judge. The 600-member Church of the Ascension was denied more than $30,000 in promised grants, most of which were intended to start a mission church.

Its rector, the Rev. Jonathan Millard, said his members are prepared to move if they lose their building to the Episcopal diocese, though they worry about what will happen to the ashes of loved ones interred in the church.

"We've done what we believe is right and we aren't in control of the consequences," he said.

The lawsuit was filed in 2003 by Calvary parish in Shadyside, as a pre-emptive strike against secession. Calvary, with 1,200 members, has grown since the split. Its rector, the Rev. Harold Lewis, admits that the split he fought to prevent has been good for Calvary.

Members "are occupying positions in the life of the diocese which were impossible for us before because we were on the wrong side of the ideological divide," he said.

But Episcopal leaders are just as theologically conservative as the Anglicans. Among them is the Rev. Jeff Murph, pastor of St. Thomas in Oakmont. He lost about 50 of his church's 630 members, who started an Anglican parish in a Baptist church a few blocks away.

"There is sadness, because we love these people and have worked together with them for years," he said. He offered to let them meet at St. Thomas or to send them out as an official "plant" of the parish. But those who left wanted a clear break with the Episcopal Church.

St. Thomas has come through strong, and some parish events have soared in attendance. After a mission trip to New Orleans, the parish changed its pre-Ash Wednesday pancake supper to a Mardi Gras event.

"We had jambalaya for 100 and ran out of food," the Rev. Murph said.

At the splinter congregation, St. John the Evangelist, the Rev. Lawrence Deihle still speaks glowingly of St. Thomas, where he was once an assistant.

"It came down to a different calling from God," he said of the split.

People from both churches remain in prayer groups with friends from St. Thomas. The parishes aren't competitors, but share a mission field, he said.

Harvest Anglican Church in Homer City, Indiana County, moved miles away from two parishes that its 30 members left.

"We felt that, to have a fresh start, we should be someplace that would give us an opportunity to reach into a community that didn't already have an Anglican church," said Deacon Homer Hicks, who leads the new congregation.

"We've all agreed that what has happened has happened," he said. "We wish the other churches well. Christianity in this country is suffering and there is plenty of room for growth for everybody."

Volunteers from Episcopal parishes still cook and serve meals at Shepherd's Heart in Oakland, a parish for the homeless that belongs to the Anglican diocese.

A more controversial ministry is that of Trinity School for Ministry, the Ambridge seminary founded in 1976 as an evangelical alternative to more liberal Episcopal seminaries. Most Episcopal dioceses will not send candidates there. But its graduates remain welcome here, said the Rev. James Simons, president of the Episcopal standing committee, who has two degrees from Trinity.

"We would have no difficulty sending people there," he said.

Nowhere is a spirit of reconciliation more evident than at historic Trinity Cathedral, Downtown. It serves both dioceses, and is governed by a "chapter" of clergy and laity from both. On a chapter retreat, Archbishop Duncan and Bishop Johnson prayed together.

"I was very intentional about how I wanted to act with him, to approach the meeting with a spirit of Christian reconciliation," Bishop Johnson said.

The Rev. Lynn Edwards, the only openly gay priest in the original diocese, is a member of the chapter.

"When we're in chapter meetings, I call him Archbishop, because that is his title now. I would never dream of calling him Mr. Duncan, as some people have. ... He is still a bishop, he simply isn't my bishop any more," the Rev. Edwards said.

Fran Gargotta, a member of the Episcopal diocesan council, belongs to St. Brendan's in Franklin Park, the only parish in the original diocese to take Bishop Duncan up on his offer to receive oversight from another bishop before the split. They loved the bishop who came from West Virginia, but were delighted when his services were no longer needed, she said.

"Bishop Johnson is the right person for us. ... He understands what has transpired, and that there needs to be some healing."

People who once felt constrained at diocesan meetings now speak their mind, she said.

"It's like someone opened the windows and let in fresh air."

Lionel Deimel, a board member of Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh, calls the rebuilding of the Episcopal diocese "a bittersweet victory." More liberal Episcopalians have a voice now, but he regrets the split, he said.

The diocese has leaders who once opposed each other, and who still disagree on matters such as gay ordination. Trust has taken time, he said.

"All of us are trying to figure out how to work together," he said. "I suspect that, to some degree, all sides are going to try to avoid divisive issues until we have a longer history of working with one another."

The Church of the Redeemer in Squirrel Hill is a gay-friendly parish that had felt marginalized in the original diocese.

"We are really happy in this new configuration," said the Rev. Cynthia Bronson Sweigert.

But she stays in touch with friends in the Anglican diocese, and they compared notes on their diocesan conventions.

"We had all experienced a convention that was much more positive and happy than in the past," she said. "Schism is a negative thing. I really agree with that. But yet, it feels like an abstraction. The reality is that we were in an unhappy marriage for so long that we needed to divide before there could ever be any hope of reconciliation."

Bishop Johnson said he believes that God is at work in all of it.

"We don't always know for certain just how. I don't, and Bishop Duncan doesn't," he said.

"But we have to believe that we're called to do the work that our Lord wants us to do, each in his own way, and not look back."

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Correction/Clarification: (Published July 28, 2009) Lionel Deimel is a board member of Progressive Episcopalians. The wrong title was given in this story as originally published July 26, 2009 about the two Episcopal dioceses in Pittsburgh.