Earlier this month, Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori sent a letter to San Joaquin bishop John-David Schofield, asking if he and his dioceses had officially abandoned the Episcopal Church.

Today, Episcopal News Service, has his reply.

In a pastoral letter intended to be read December 16 in the congregations of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin, Bishop John-David Schofield said that since the December 8 diocesan convention the diocese is “no longer operating under the looming shadow” of the Episcopal Church’s “institutional apostasy,” according to ENS.

Schofield wrote in his letter that this “institutional apostasy” stems from what he calls the Episcopal Church’s “failure to heed the repeated calls for repentance issued by the Primates of the Anglican Communion and for the cessation of false teaching and sacramental actions explicitly contrary to Scripture,” ENS reported.

Schofield’s letter has not yet been posted on the diocesan website.