A parishioner gave me this story this morning. It's not that different from a number of stories on this subject, but it reminds us what's at stake in terms of property and financial assets. ed.
From the Wall Street Journal via TitusOneNine:
NOVEMBER 25, 2009
As Episcopal Parishes and Dioceses Break From the National Body, Ugly Court Battles Over Valued Property Have Followed
By AMY MERRICK
When the members of St. Luke's of the Mountains Church in La Crescenta, Calif., voted in 2006 to leave the Episcopal Church, they never meant they wanted to leave their church.
But last month, they got notice they were being evicted from the 80-year-old stone structure that had been their spiritual home.
The congregants lost a long legal fight for their building when a court ruled that the national Episcopal Church, which represents the world-wide Anglican Communion in the U.S., and the local diocese were the rightful owners of the property -- not the breakaway leaders.
Divided Congregation Fights for the Church
A sign pointed toward the chapel at Seventh Day Adventist Church. Breakaway congregation St. Luke's Anglican Church is renting the space temporarily.
More photos and interactive graphics
"For many of us, leaving here will be one of the most difficult things we have ever done for God," Rev. Rob Holman said in his last sermon in the building before renting the Seventh Day Adventist Church nearby.
The Vatican has offered Anglicans a chance to return to the Catholic church. Simon Constable speaks with three eminent scholars about the offer to bury the hatchet after a half-millennium.
In the past few years, individual parishes and four dioceses in the U.S. have voted to split from the Episcopal Church, which had about two million members before the split. In June, some of these groups officially founded a rival province, the Anglican Church in North America, which includes some 742 parishes.
The schism reflects arguments over church doctrine, such as the ordination of women priests and the elevation of an openly gay bishop in 2003. Each side argues it best embodies the values and beliefs of the Anglican Communion. The breakaway groups say they are holding true to the Anglican understanding of theology, as the U.S. Episcopal Church moves to the left. The national body says its positions may change over time, but the tenets of the denomination guide those actions.
The split has triggered some ugly battles over the assets. In civil courts nationwide, breakaway parishes are fighting local dioceses and the national Episcopal Church for church property, including financial accounts and endowments. A spokeswoman for the Episcopal Church said she couldn't give an estimate for the value of all church property because there are more than 7,100 congregations. The national body has argued that when local churches became its affiliates, they agreed to abide by its rules, including rules about property ownership.
In Religious Disputes, U.S. Courts Avoid Deciding Matters of Doctrine
The U.S. courts aren't taking a position about which faction is more legitimate -- unlike in Britain, where courts have generally considered which group held more closely to the church's original doctrine. The U.S. Supreme Court, as far back as 1871 and in subsequent cases as recently as 1979, has held that the courts shouldn't get involved in doctrinal disputes. In practice, that meant most times the national church would win such disputes.
Shortly after the 1979 case, the Episcopal Church adopted the "Dennis Canon," which says the national church and the local diocese have a "trust interest" in all local church properties. That trust interest, which says broadly that all parish property is held in trust for the diocese and the Episcopal Church, specifies that if a parish chooses to leave the national body, it must give up control of its property.
Some breakaway churches argue that the Dennis Canon is invalid because local parishes never consented to the arrangement.
Because of the Dennis Canon, courts frequently side with the Episcopal Church. The Episcopal Church was successful in its fight to reassert ownership of the $17 million Grace and St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Colorado Springs, Colo., after a portion of its congregation voted to secede and took control of the property.
But state property laws vary, so sometimes local churches prevail. A September opinion from the South Carolina Supreme Court overturned a lower-court ruling and declared a breakaway congregation to be the rightful owner of its 60-acre property in a prestigious resort area.
Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intercede in a property dispute between the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles and St. James Anglican Church in Newport Beach, Calif., a more conservative congregation that parted ways with the diocese. The case has returned to Orange County Superior Court.
The stakes are highest in cases in which entire dioceses split from the Episcopal Church. In the Fort Worth, Texas, area, conservatives, who aligned with the Anglican Church in North America, won the allegiance of about 15,000 of the 19,000 members of the original Episcopal diocese. The conservatives have control of nearly all church buildings and financial accounts. Neither side will estimate the value of the buildings and endowments at stake, beyond saying it is in the "many millions."
“Those - from one generation only - who decided to leave should not expect to take this common property with them. It belongs to those who went before -and those who will come after- those who who were and those who still are Episcopalians. ”
— Eric Thomas
Those loyal to the national Episcopal Church are suing to get the property back. The lawsuit also raises the question of which group may use the name and logo of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth. Both sides say they are best able to carry on the tradition of the church.
"We're trying to be faithful stewards of what previous generations of Episcopalians have given to the church in good faith," says Bishop Edwin Gulick Jr., who was appointed by the national Episcopal Church after the break. "They intended those gifts to be used for the mission and ministry of the Episcopal Church."
The court battles might do more than divide property. They could also determine which side in the theological dispute some congregants take.
Alice Monson, a 79-year-old member of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Hurst, Texas, said she stayed with the conservative faction after the schism in part because it retained control of the sanctuary. She helped paint the Stations of the Cross there. When the church was short of funds, she cut flowers from her home garden to grace the altar.
"To me, it's home," she said. "It's my church. I will stay here."
Asked what she would do if the more liberal faction gains control of the church building, Ms. Monson shook her head. "I'm afraid to address that. It's too painful," she said. "We just keep praying and let the courts take care of it."
In La Crescenta, an unincorporated area in Los Angeles County, the breakaway group renamed itself St. Luke's Anglican Church. Meanwhile, the Episcopal Church is reorganizing in the disputed building under the church's earlier name, St. Luke's of the Mountains.
On Oct. 18, the church held a reconciliation service. "The message was that everyone is welcome," including members of the breakaway congregation, says Rev. Bryan Jones, the new pastor. "The Episcopal Church never required them to do anything that they in conscience couldn't do."
That message attracted people like Arthur Braudrick, who used to attend St. Luke's with his wife but stopped going when the church started discussing whether to secede. "Female clergy, gay clergy, those things just aren't issues for us," he says. The tone of the reconciliation service impressed Mr. Braudrick.
"There was nothing negative said about the people who left," he says. "If that had been said, we probably would not have returned."
-- Stephanie Simon contributed to this article.
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