PITTSBURGH: Diocese resolves differences with Somerset congregation
Episcopal News Service. February 14, 2011 [021411-04]
ENS staff
For the second time in two weeks, the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh has announced an agreement resolving parish property issues with a group of former Episcopalians.
The diocese announced the agreement Feb. 14 with the Somerset Anglican Fellowship.
According to a diocesan press release, the agreement allows the Somerset Anglican Fellowship to remain part of the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh or any religious body of its choosing. The congregation agrees to return all property provided for its use by the Episcopal diocese and to not support any property litigation brought by anyone else against the Episcopal diocese.
The membership condition differs from the one settled on in a Feb. 2 agreement with St. Philip's Church in Moon Township. That agreement requires St. Philip's to "no longer be affiliated with the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh or any similar group outside the Episcopal Church for a minimum period of five years."
St. Philip's members must pay off an existing mortgage; repay the diocese the amount of a 2007 distribution from a diocesan endowment fund; and pay the diocese an additional cash amount which the diocese will finance, with interest, for up to 15 years. The diocese will continue to hold the deed for the property until these payments have all been made, according to the summary.
A summary of the Somerset agreement says it resolves all potential legal disputes between the diocese and Somerset Anglican Fellowship and allows both "to go forward with their respective principal missions," according to the press release. The summary of the agreement was issued jointly by Pittsburgh Bishop Kenneth Price and the Rev. J. Mark Zimmerman, pastor of the Somerset Anglican Fellowship.
The terms are subject to court approval and both parties will seek that approval together, the release said.
Both agreements were based on an acknowledgement of the "Dennis Canon," (Canon 1.7.4) adopted by the Episcopal Church in 1979, which holds that all parish property is held in trust for the Episcopal Church and the local Episcopal diocese, the release said.
"Since the Somerset Anglican Fellowship agreed to return all property to us and not to support litigation against us, its affiliation with the Anglican diocese was not an issue," Price said in the release, adding that "we hope that every agreement we reach will be fair to both sides."
The release said that Somerset Anglican Fellowship was admitted into the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh in 2008 and is the newer of two diocesan parishes serving the area. The other, St. Francis-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church, began its ministry in 1958.
St. Francis and its rector, the Rev. Lenny Anderson, are involved in ecumenical programs with other Somerset churches, including the Somerset Anglican Fellowship, according to the release.
"It's nice that we can work together, and that Mark and I can sit down and have lunch together," Anderson said in the release. "In so many aspects, there's definitely a lot of positive energy here at St. Francis right now."
The property issues arose when on Oct. 4, 2008 a majority of the delegates to the diocese's 143rd annual convention approved a resolution by which the diocese purported to leave the Episcopal Church. The leaders who departed formed the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh that is part of the Argentina-based Anglican Province of the Southern Cone.