Virginia diocese files suits against property claims of separated congregations
Episcopal News Service. January 31, 2007 [013107-03]
Mary Frances Schjonberg
The Episcopal Diocese of Virginia went to court January 31 over the real and personal property held in trust by 11 congregations where the majority membership has voted to leave the Episcopal Church, but have not vacated or relinquished that property to the diocese.
According to a diocesan news release, eight of the congregations initiated proceedings in their respective circuit courts to transfer ownership of their real properties from the diocese and the Episcopal Church and to the Church of Nigeria through an organization called Convocation of Anglicans of North America (CANA).
Last week the diocese filed responses to those eight actions, objecting to any transfer of property, citing both Virginia law and the canons of the Episcopal Church and the Diocese.
According to the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church, dioceses are created or dissolved only by acts of General Convention (Articles V and VI) and dioceses create or dissolve Episcopal congregations in their midst. Congregational property is held in trust for the diocese, and the diocese holds property in trust for the wider church (Canon I.7.4). Virginia's diocesan canons (Canon 15) concur with the national canons.
According to the January 31 release, the diocese filed 11 complaints in various jurisdictions seeking:
- a declaration that the congregations have made improper claims regarding Episcopal Church property (“declaring that there has been an improper trespass, conversion, alienation and use of the real and personal property”);
- a court order upholding the interest in the property of the Diocese (“the trust, proprietary and contract rights of the Diocese”);
- an order restraining further use and occupancy of the property by the separated congregations;
- an order conveying legal title to and control of the property to the bishop of the diocese;
- an order requiring a full accounting of the “use of all real and personal property” by the separated congregations.
The congregations involved are Christ the Redeemer, Centreville; Church of the Apostles, Fairfax; Church of the Epiphany, Herndon; Church of Our Saviour, Oatlands; Church of the Word, Gainesville; Potomac Falls Episcopal, Sterling; St. Margaret’s, Woodbridge; St. Paul’s, Haymarket; St. Stephen’s, Heathsville; Truro, Fairfax and The Falls Church, Falls Church.
The clergy in charge and lay leadership of each of the 11 congregations were named as defendants in the actions, according to the news release. The diocese did not ask the courts to impose any personal liability on any of the individual named defendants at this time.
The leadership of the diocese announced on January 22 that it had ruled the majority membership of the 11 separated congregations voluntarily chose to sever their ties with the diocese and, in doing so, abandoned the property for the purposes for which it was set aside, namely the mission of the Episcopal Church and the diocese.
The diocesan Executive Board adopted resolutions on January 18 declaring the real and personal property of the separated congregations “abandoned” under the canons of the Church and authorizing the bishop to take such steps as may be necessary to recover or secure the property for the mission of the Church.
“The differences are not about property but about the legacy we have received for the mission of Christ and our obligation to preserve that legacy for the future,” Virginia Bishop Peter Lee said in a January 18 letter to the diocese.
He wrote that "previous generations of Episcopalians worshiped, worked, prayed and gave generously for the spread of the Kingdom of God. It is the trust that they created, and that we inherited, which now we must move to protect, preserve and expand for generations to come."
The members of the congregations amount to about 8,000 of the diocese's roughly 90,000 Episcopalians who worship in 195 congregations. The Episcopal Church includes some 7,200 congregations in its 100 domestic dioceses, and about 150 in its 10 overseas dioceses and one convocation.
Bishops offer support of Lee
On January 26, nineteen bishops of Province III of the Episcopal Church issued a statement supporting Lee, the Executive Board and Standing Committee for the decisions and actions they have taken concerning the congregations where the majority membership has voted to leave the Episcopal Church. The complete statement, as it was read to Virginia’s recently concluded annual Council, follows.
January 26, 2007
We the Bishops of Dioceses in Province III (the Middle Atlantic area) of The Episcopal Church commend and support our brother The Right Reverend Peter J. Lee, Bishop of Virginia, the Standing Committee and the Executive Committee of the Diocese of Virginia in their recent action and statement concerning several parishes within the Diocese of Virginia which have withdrawn from The Episcopal Church. We support completely these decisions necessitated by the Canons of our Church and morally responsible. Moreover, we commend Bishop Lee for the many ways over several years in which he tried to pastorally minister to, find appropriate compromises, and charitably respond to his detractors. We are proud to be his colleagues.
The Right Reverend Robert W. Ihloff, President of Province III, Bishop of Maryland
The Right Reverend Nathan D. Baxter, Bishop of Central Pennsylvania
The Right Reverend Wayne P. Wright, Bishop of Delaware
The Right Reverend James J. Shand, Bishop of Easton
The Right Reverend John L. Rabb, Bishop Suffragan of Maryland
The Right Reverend Robert D. Rowley, Bishop of Northwestern Pennsylvania
The Right Reverend Charles E. Bennison, Bishop of Pennsylvania
The Right Reverend Frank Neff Powell, Bishop of Southwestern Virginia
The Right Reverend David C. Jones, Bishop Suffragan of Virginia
The Right Reverend John B. Chane, Bishop of Washington
The Right Reverend A. Theodore Eastman, Bishop of Maryland, Retired
The Right Reverend Jane Holmes Dixon, Bishop Suffragan of Washington, Retired
The Right Reverend William Michie Klusmeyer, Bishop of West Virginia
The Right Reverend Michael W. Creighton, Bishop of Central Pennsylvania, Retired
The Right Reverend Charles L. Longest, Bishop Suffragan of Maryland, Retired
The Right Reverend David K. Leighton, Bishop of Maryland Retired
The Right Reverend Charles McNutt, Bishop of Central Pennsylvania, Retired
The Right Reverend Paul V. Marshall, Bishop of Bethlehem
The Right Reverend Ronald H. Haines, Bishop of Washington, Retired
The Right Reverend Allen L. Bartlett, Bishop of Pennsylvania, Retired
The Right Reverend Franklin D. Turner, Bishop Suffragan of Pennsylvania, Retired