NORTHERN CALIFORNIA: Diocese sues to regain Petaluma church property
Episcopal News Service. February 5, 2008 [020508-05]
Pat McCaughan, Correspondent for Episcopal Life Media in Province VIII
The Episcopal Diocese of Northern California filed a lawsuit in California Superior Court in Sonoma County on February 4 seeking the return of St. John's Church in Petaluma, which broke away from the Sacramento-based diocese about a year ago.
"We are not seeking to be punitive against any individuals in any way," Bishop Barry Beisner said February 4. "We are simply seeking the return of property which, for a century and a half, has been held in trust for the mission of the Episcopal Church. Good stewardship and faithfulness to our mission necessitate this action."
The lawsuit was brought reluctantly after negotiations failed with a group calling itself "St. John's Anglican" church, which has occupied the parish buildings at 40 Fifth Street since December 2006. The group had at that time filed documents with the California Secretary of State and Sonoma County asserting its ownership, according to a press release issued by the diocese.
"We are challenging these actions in the only venue available to us, the legitimate civil courts, which are founded and guided by principles of equal justice in our democracy," Beisner said.
To support the diocese, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has been asked to intervene in the lawsuit, and it is expected that The Episcopal Church (TEC) will do so by filing court documents at a later date, both diocesan and church-wide representatives have confirmed.
The lawsuit does not seek monetary redress; merely a return to the former legal status, said the Rev. Canon Britt Olson, canon to the ordinary.
Although published media reports have estimated the property's value at about $1.5 million, Olson dismissed the amount as "a rough guess. We've not had a fair market value assessment of the property."
The Rev. David Miller, rector of St. John's Anglican Church, was unavailable for comment, according to parish administrator Mike McIntosh. He declined to comment, except to say he was unaware of the lawsuit.
But Miller had, in a December 17, 2006 letter posted on the church website, announced he and members of the congregation were splitting from The Episcopal Church (TEC) and realigning with the Argentina-based Province of the Southern Cone.
"St. John's will now be known as St. John's Anglican Church," Miller wrote to then Bishop Jerry Lamb on December 17. He also indicated that Archbishop Gregory Venables had accepted Miller's request to transfer his ministry to the Southern Cone, which encompasses the countries of Bolivia, Argentina, Paraguay, Chile and Peru and Uruguay, representing about 22,000 members.
The Diocese of Northern California -- comprised of some 15,000 Episcopalians in about 70 missions and parishes -- includes the territory from Sacramento north to the Oregon state line, east to Nevada, and west to the Pacific Ocean. It does not include the San Francisco Bay area.
In December 2007, a majority of congregations of the neighboring Central Valley Diocese of San Joaquin, based in Fresno, California, had also voted to leave TEC and to realign with the Southern Cone, citing differences over the ordination of gays and authority of Scripture.
Miller indicated that similar differences initiated his actions. Additionally, the group calling itself "St. John's Anglican" had removed the diocesan name from the property deed.
The Rev. Norman Cram, who served as priest-in-charge at St. John's Episcopal Church from 1995-1999, said he and about 70 members have been meeting at Elim Lutheran Church in Petaluma since last April.
"It's a very satisfying thing to be in the mainstream of the continuing church begun 150 years ago," as well as TEC and the Anglican Communion, Cram said Monday.
"Pastor Tim Kellgren and the congregation have been totally loving and supportive and giving to us," he said.
Cram said he and the vestry of St. John's Episcopal Church were also plaintiffs in Monday's lawsuit. "Over the years we attempted to negotiate with the group occupying the building," he said. "We offered generous terms and to go into mediation, but members of the departed congregation rejected our offers."
He said that individual vestry members were not named in the lawsuit, so no individual will face fiscal jeopardy.
"We want to continue to keep the door open for reconciliation and the possibility, God willing, of one day being united again in worship," he added.
He said that admonitions about Christians going to court against Christians don't apply to the situation. "This is about democratic process and the principle of equal justice for all," Cram added.
Beisner, who was elected bishop in 2006, echoed the sentiment: "Please let me underline that the former leaders of the parish took the first steps in bringing this into the legal system by filing to change the name and status of the parish with the State of California," he said.
"We are calling upon legitimate legal authority to assist us in undoing the effect of a legal action already taken by fellow Christians, and taken in disregard for this Church's willingness to seek reconciliation, with the help of God," he said.
A copy of the legal documents and additional information is online.