Technically, there may be two different churches worshipping at St. Andrew’s in the Pines Episcopal Church in Peachtree City.

But both groups of parishioners are sharing the same service with the exact same part-time retired pastor who had been hired temporarily prior to a recent vote where two-thirds of parishioners voted to sever ties with the national Episcopal Church and align instead with the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, officials said.

“There’s no hard feelings between parishioners,” on either side of the issue, said David Wardell, senior warden of the St. Andrews Vestry at the time of the vote and who made the application for the church to be accepted by CANA. “We are very careful not to confront fellow parishioners. ... We are still a church family.”

St. Andrews Episcopal is still active despite losing roughly two-thirds of its members two weeks ago when the congregation voted 67 percent in favor of splitting from the Episcopal Church in the United States and aligning with the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, which is overseen by a bishop in Nigeria on the African continent.

Meanwhile, the newly formed St. Andrews CANA made its first formal offer Friday to the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta to settle the remaining property issues, Wardell said.

Among those issues is the fact that of three pieces of the church’s property, only one is deeded to the diocese while the other two are actually deeded to the church, Wardell said. But a religious canon calls for the diocese to be considered the owner of the property “in perpetuity,” Wardell has said.

Wardell said the St. Andrews CANA congregation doesn’t want to drag the issue into court or otherwise waste parishioners’ money.

Bishop J. Neil Alexander of the Atlanta Diocese of the Episcopal Church has met with remaining Episcopal parishioners and informed them the diocese will pay for a new priest for the congregation until a new vestry can be formed to provide fiscal leadership for the church.

In a statement to the St. Andrews Episcopal congregation, Bishop Alexander said the parish remains in “good standing” with — and will remain a part of — the diocese.

“As the bishop of the Diocese of Atlanta, I can assure all of you that we are committed to rebuilding St. Andrew’s to greater strength than it has ever known before,” Alexander said. “Given that St. Andrew’s has been abandoned by its vestry, it is important that those who desire to continue with us gather as soon as possible to pray, to identify, and to elect a new vestry to work with me to guide St. Andrew’s life into the future.”

The diocese will supply an experienced traditional priest to the church on a month-to-month basis until all of the details can be worked out by the new church wardens and vestry, Alexander said.

Alexander said an account has been set up at the diocese office to receive financial contributions to the church until the new vestry can appoint a new parish treasurer.

“Every penny of that money will be returned to the treasurer of St. Andrew’s at the earliest possible moment,” Alexander said.

Wardell has said the reason the congregation voted to pursue the Anglican CANA association was largely due to differences in reinterpreting scripture. The problems spiked in 2003 when the national Episcopal Church appointed an openly gay bishop, and that caused St. Andrew’s to lose many church members despite the previous spike in membership that had been building up over the previous years.

Similar splits have been occurring between Episcopal churches across the U.S. according to news reports.

In a letter to the church, the bishop said he regretted not insisting on a closer pastoral relationship between him and the church earlier. “I have been to St. Andrew’s one time (two if you count the recent meeting with the Vestry). With the same frequency I visit other parishes, I have attempted to schedule visitations at St. Andrew’s. Each time, the Rector and Wardens have discouraged a visit on the grounds that my presence would upset the members of St. Andrew’s. I chose to honor those requests in a spirit of generosity and as a gesture of peacemaking. I now understand that to have been a mistake,” Alexander wrote.

“St. Andrew’s-in-the-Pines Episcopal Church is a parish in good standing within the Diocese of Atlanta. It will continue to be so. I cannot change that fact. Neither can a vote of a congregation or a vestry,” Alexander wrote. “Some of our number choosing personally to disaffiliate with us in no way alters the fact that St. Andrew’s is a parish of the Diocese of Atlanta. To be a part of The Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Atlanta was the vision of the founders of St. Andrew’s, and nothing short of an action of Annual Council can alter that vision, nor lessen our resolve toward keeping all of the commitments that vision implies.”