Although an Allegheny County judge ruled last week on who owns assets of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, the status of local churches remains unsettled.

Four churches in the Butler area are among a majority that decided to split last year from the diocese's increasingly progressive province, The Episcopal Church in the United States of America.

Those churches include St. Peter's Episcopal Church on East Jefferson Street, St. Christopher's Episcopal Church in Cranberry Township, Grace Anglican Church in Slippery Rock and Trinity Episcopal Church in Freeport.

Since the decision to split last October, two versions of the Episcopal diocese exist, with no clear answers on who owns individual parish properties, how the new diocese will ordain priests and whether it will be recognized by the Church of England or operate independently.

Confusion is enhanced as both groups continue to operate in Pittsburgh using nearly identical names: The original group continues as The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. The new group goes by The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, Anglican.

To facilitate the split, the offshoot group left The Episcopal Church in the United States of America by realigning with The Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, based in Argentina.

Both are provinces of the London-based Anglican Communion, an international alliance of churches tied to the Church of England.

Linking with the Southern Cone only temporarily, the new group in December 2008 linked with several other U.S. communities to form their own province, The Anglican Church in North America.

That province is led by Robert Duncan, head of the new Pittsburgh diocese. Duncan formerly served as bishop of the original diocese, but was deposed before the split.

Still unclear is whether the new, self-declared province will be recognized by the archbishop of Canterbury, the Church of England's principal leader.

"They're trying to be their own province, but history goes against that," said Rich Creehan, a spokesman for the original diocese. "There historically is only one province per geographic area," Creehan said.

Property uncertainty also remains: The court decision this month only addressed the diocesan assets, estimated to exceed $15 million. Little headway has been made into sorting out who owns the actual churches.

Creehan said the recent ruling was based on existing legal documents created in 2005, when the possibility of a split became clear. According to Creehan, those documents are based on concepts of unity.

"Individuals can leave. Members of congregations that want to leave, even en masse, can do it — but the Episcopal Church holds that the dioceses and parishes are part of the larger church," he said.

"That's part of the big dispute. The church itself has no provisions for parishes or dioceses leaving."

The Rev. Ethan Magness, pastor of Grace Anglican, agreed.

"There was a stipulation that both sides agreed to that parishes could not leave the diocese," he said. "The question for us was, can a diocese leave a province?"

According to members of both dioceses, the 2005 stipulation also addressed how realigned groups could acquire parish properties.

According to a statement on the original diocese Web site, the stipulation requires "there be a dialogue between the diocese and any parish seeking to disaffiliate from the diocese" to acquire parish properties. The dialogue must be followed by third-party mediation before legal action is taken.

Creehan said the diocese owns deeds from some properties, but others are owned by individual parishes.

"Legally the diocese owns the buildings and the grounds, because the deeds are in their names," said the Rev. Richard Geary, who recently retired from his job as pastor of St. Peter's.

Geary is still involved with St. Peter's as well as St. Christopher's. The Rev. Paul Cooper, pastor of St. Christopher's, is leading both churches until Geary's replacement is found.

Geary said the congregation has accepted the uncertainty about the future of its building.

"Generally, people in our diocese are at peace about the whole thing. If we need to walk away, we need to," he said.

As a newly planted church that has not yet acquired its own building, Magness said Grace Anglican Church is unconcerned with parish property. His church has suffered somewhat, however, since the diocesan assets included a fund dedicated to church plants.

"Forty percent of our income this year has been frozen," said Magness, whose church began in 2006. "We've been surviving without that, which has been hard."

Magness said since the realignment, attendance has grown — a testament to the fact that most area Episcopalians favored joining a province more closely tied to their denomination's original theology.

"We were averaging about 110. We're probably at 135, 140," he said. "But there have been people who have come because of our stand against the national church," he added.

Since the original split announcement allowed churches two years to declare their alliance, no one is sure of exact numbers in each diocese. But most agree a minority will remain in the original diocese. Creehan estimates a 60-40 split between about 70 parishes made up of roughly 19,000 people.

With ordination issues still somewhat fuzzy, the original diocese also recently sent out letters asking realigning priests to complete paperwork designed for them to leave the diocese in good standing.

Realigning priests are unsure if their ordinations will transfer under the Church of England or whether they will function independently, ordaining their own clergy.

However ordained, Magness said the priests will continue to draw a following, despite the unsettled issues.

"It's very confusing right now, a lot of those things are up in the air," he said.

"I'm glad our folks here are unified no matter what happens. I worry about the churches that are smaller that have used their buildings and really need them," he added.

"It begs the question because many of them are historic landmarks, and you've got to pay for their upkeep," Magness said.

"I don't know if they're planning on taking our rectors, replacing them with liberal priests" he added.

"Nobody would show up."