PHILADELPHIA - United Methodist Church Bishop Marcus Matthews has decided to appeal a panel ruling that reinstated a Philadelphia minister who had been defrocked for declaring that she was living in a relationship with another woman.

Irene Elizabeth Stroud, ousted last year by a regional church court, was ordered reinstated by an appeals panel of the Northeastern Jurisdiction, covering a 12-state area. The case now goes to the Judicial Council, the church's supreme court, whose next session is Oct. 26-29 in Houston.

The Rev. Thomas Hall, who acted as prosecutor in the original trial, said, "We felt an egregious error was committed at the appellate level."

Stroud told the denominational news service that Matthews returned her clergy credentials but she declined reappointment until the Judicial Council settles her status. She continues as a lay minister at the First United Methodist Church of Germantown.

PITTSBURGH - Bishop Thomas Joseph was formally enthroned Friday as the new bishop of an Antiochian Orthodox Church diocese that is headquartered in Pittsburgh.Joseph was a priest in Florida when he was made a bishop last November.The elaborate ceremony in which Joseph was cloaked and enthroned took place at St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church in Pittsburgh's Oakland section.Joseph is now considered the church's Bishop of Oakland and the East, a diocese containing about 25 churches in western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and the District of Columbia.NAPLES, Fla. - Ave Maria University, the first Roman Catholic university to open in the United States in four decades, has graduated its first class.Twenty-three students received bachelor's degrees from the school, founded by Domino's Pizza magnate Thomas S. Monaghan, a supporter of conservative Catholic causes who hopes it will one day rival the University of Notre Dame.Honorary degrees were given to L. Paul Bremer, a lay Catholic and former leader of the U.S. occupation in Iraq, and St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke.By The Associated Press