State judge reserves decision on local church

From pressconnects.com (The Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin):


Diocese, Good Shepherd at odds over ownership

By William Moyer • wmoyer@gannett.com • Staff Writer • December 13, 2008

A state Supreme Court judge decided Friday to reserve a decision in the legal dispute between the local church and a regional diocese over who owns the property in the wake of Good Shepherd's withdrawal from the Episcopal denomination.

For now, the congregation will focus on Christmas, according to the Rev. Matthew Kennedy.

"If this is our last Christmas, at least we'll celebrate it together," Kennedy said he will tell parishioners at worship Sunday. "Every year, every day, we walk according to God's grace."

Kennedy said the church's attorney, Raymond Dague of Syracuse, argued before Judge Ferris D. Lebous the diocese's claim to the property is invalid because national church, or canon, law cited to claim the property wasn't properly enacted by the Episcopal Church.

The diocese, headquartered in Syracuse, didn't immediately return a telephone call seeking comment.

A state appeals court ruling in October sided with the Rochester Diocese in a legal battle over ownership of All Saints Church in Irondequoit, which withdrew from the Episcopal Church in January 2006. The local outcome could be cited as a precedent in similar cases pending before courts across the country as disgruntled congregations leave the Episcopal Church.

Good Shepherd's vestry voted in November 2007 to withdraw from the Central New York diocese and affiliate itself with an Anglican communion with orthodox doctrine on homosexuality and other teachings.

Two other parishes in central New York also withdrew from the regional diocese after the national church ordained V. Gene Robinson, a homosexual, as a bishop in 2003.

St. Andrew's in Vestal vacated its buildings rather than get snarled in a costly legal battle with the diocese. The congregation moved to a Baptist building in Vestal. The other church, in downtown Syracuse, dropped its legal battle and surrendered its buildings.