Why shouldn’t a diocese be the final judge of actions of general convention?
The General Convention is the ultimate authority in the ECUSA. From its beginning, the ECUSA has had a requirement that to be admitted to ECUSA a diocese must give unqualified accession to the constitution of the national church. It is the equivalent of the supremacy clause in the U.S. Constitution. Constituent parts of a whole do not have the power to overturn actions of that whole. The requirement for an unqualified accession is a part of the contract that created the diocese. To impair this clause in any way is to break the contract and put the diocese outside the Episcopal Church. The Diocese of Pittsburgh was recognized by General Convention in 1865. Given that the country was just bringing to a close four bloody years of civil war (a war that discredited ideas of nullification and secession), it is hard to believe that the Diocese of Pittsburgh somehow did not understand that this accession was permanent.
