The Portland Mysteries

Still on the subject of unanswered questions, the news of Robin Connors's passing and the intrigues surrounding Owen Rhys Williams brings me back to what we don't know about the two sometime-ACA parishes in Portland, OR, St Mark's and St Francis. They appear to be key way stations in the progress of two inner-clique members of the ACA, Connors and Williams, as well as a point-of-origin for another mysterious figure, Terrance Tutor.

St Mark's Portland earlier answered my e-mail request for Robin Connors's dates of employment, but never answered my request on Williams. St Francis has never replied to my requests for information on either Connors or Tutor. According to St Mark's, Connors was Rector from January 1998 to December 2001. The biographical profile on Williams that was briefly available on the ACA Diocese of the West web site says that he was a curate there (presumably under Connors) and then Priest-in-Charge. However, I don't get the impression that Williams was ever Rector. He then left for unspecified reasons and wound up on the other side of the country in New Hampshire.

I speculated the other day that Williams, whose background included lumber yard manager and ski instructor, may have run into Louis Falk in Colorado in the mid-1990s and been referred by Falk to Connors in Portland. However that happened, Connors at some point looked on Williams, thought him good, and ordained him, though he never had formal seminary training. I'm told that during Connors's St Mark's period, Terrance Tutor, having left the life of an ordinary religious at an Oregon Roman Catholic priory, was hanging around St Mark's, wearing a clerical collar, and calling himself Fr Tutor.

After 2001, Connors left St Mark's and founded his own parish, St Francis Portland, under the direct supervision of Louis Falk, while St Mark's was in the ACA Diocese of the West until about 2009, when it went into the Anglican Province of Christ the King. Terrance Tutor followed Connors over to St Francis, while Williams remained at St Mark's as Priest-in-Charge. At some point, however, I'm told that Tutor somehow lost favor with Connors and fled to New Hampshire; I assume that Williams, by several accounts a good friend of Tutor, recommended New Hampshire as the sort of place where one could escape whatever bad vibes might have accumulated in Oregon.

Tutor, in the informal account I've heard, expected to be ordained by Connors on the same basis (whatever it was) that Connors ordained Williams, but it didn't happen. However, once Tutor got to New Hampshire, Williams prevailed on then-Bishop Langberg to ordain him, and the deed was done.

So here are some unanswered questions:

• Under what circumstances did Owen Rhys Williams find his way to St Mark's Portland and become an aspirant-postulant-candidate for holy orders?
• Under what circumstances did Robin Connors leave St Mark's Portland?
• Precisely when, and under what circumstances, did Robin Connors leave St Francis Portland?
• Precisely when, and under what circumstances, did Owen Williams leave St Mark's Portland?
• Precisely when, and under what circumstances, did Terrance Tutor leave St Francis Portland?

This, of course, is just the tip of an iceberg. Connors was, and Williams continues to be, at least until very recently, in sufficient favor in the ACA that the inner clique always seems to have found new places to park them as new sets of circumstances have arisen.