From 1977 onward a significant number--perhaps 30,000--Episcopalians left the Episcopal Church/U.S.A. because it had begun to ordain women as priests; had changed or was changing radically on a variety of sexual-ethical issues, for instance, on abortion and on the indissolubility of Christian marriage, and had altered The Book of Common Prayer (B.C.P.) in ways that the departers perceived as falsifying certain Christian doctrines.