Christian Episcopal Church Davies, with John Elbridge Hines as one of the principal consecrators. Bishop Hines had himself been consecrated the fifth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Texas in 1945, and was later elected the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. In 1992, following years of controversy in the Episcopal Church in the USA and the Anglican Church of Canada over what conservative members considered a steady drift towards both political and religious liberalism, the Episcopal Missionary Church (EMC) was founded. Although this was fifteen years after the Congress of St. Louis at which Anglicans from
Episcopal Diocese of San Diego that encouraged these members to leave. Some dissident groups attempted to retain control of their church buildings and property, but in 2008, the California Court of Appeal ruled for the Diocese and upheld the authority of Mathes to dismiss parish vestry members and clergy who sought to take a parish out of The Episcopal Church. The Episcopal Church provides "wide pastoral latitude" to individual bishops on the subject of blessing same sex couples. In 2010, Mathes approved a policy by which individual parishes could, after a self study period, choose to recognize LGBT couples in a blessing service. Episcopal Diocese