VIRGINIA: Diocese reaches another property-dispute settlement
Episcopal News Service. April 20, 2011 [042011-05]
Mary Frances Schjonberg
The Diocese of Virginia and the Episcopal Church April 19 announced a settlement with Church of the Word, Gainesville.
This is the second settlement with one of the congregations that left the Episcopal Church in 2006 and then sought to retain Episcopal Church property. The diocese and Church of Our Saviour, Oatlands, reached a settlement on Feb. 20.
"We are pleased to have reached another settlement, an important step toward enabling all involved to focus our shared energies on our important ministries," Virginia Bishop Shannon S. Johnston said in the Gainesville announcement.
The latest settlement began with "a set of unique circumstances" that led the diocese to allow the congregation to retain Episcopal property, Diocesan Secretary Henry D.W. Burt said in the release.
"Changes in the immediate vicinity of the church, namely massive construction along Route 29 that eliminates direct access to the church, create significant challenges for any congregation in that space," he said. "Should COTW ultimately decide to relocate, the Diocese of Virginia has given them the certainty and control they need to determine what is best for the congregation and the day school they offer to the Gainesville community."
According to the announcement, the diocese will retain $1.95 million from a payment by the Virginia Department of Transportation for loss of value to the property as a result of the construction. In exchange, the congregation will retain the church building and personal property, and will be responsible for the mortgage on the property. It can also keep $85,000 from the state payment and negotiate for additional monies from transportation department.
Under the terms of the settlement, the Episcopal Church and the diocese have agreed to release their trust interest in the property of the Church of the Word, which they had asserted under the church's canons (Canon 1.7.4).
The congregation will voluntarily disaffiliate from the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA), the Anglican District of Virginia of the Anglican Church in North America for five years, the announcement said. The Rev. Robin Adams, the congregation's pastor, may remain in the CANA healthcare plan and retirement plan, if permissible under the conditions of those plans.
Calling the settlement "a welcome and appropriate resolution for all involved," Johnston said "it allows everyone to continue their important work while we will continue to preserve and expand the legacy of the Episcopal Church for future generations."
In a press release on the church's website, Adams said the settlement "allows us to keep the church building that was paid for by us, not the Episcopal Church."
"It also allows us to put this painful experience behind us and move on with ministering the love of Christ to a broken world," he said. "We will not lose our Anglican identity, though we may have to rethink how we do church in the short term."
Adams said the congregation intends to re-affiliate with CANA after the required five-year period and he called the requirement "a failure to 'respect the dignity of every human being,' as the Baptismal Covenant says, and is certainly un-Christian."
Church of the Word's members were among those of 11 congregations who broke away from the diocese and the Episcopal Church. In September 2008 the diocese and the Episcopal Church reached a legal settlement with two of the congregations, Potomac Falls Church in Potomac Falls and Christ the Redeemer Church in Chantilly, neither of which held any real property.
In litigation over church property, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled in June 2010 in favor of the diocese and the Episcopal Church, holding that although the disagreements had caused "a division" within the Episcopal Church and the diocese, the breakaway congregations had affiliated with a church that was not a branch of either the Episcopal Church or the diocese. Such an affiliation is required, the court said, for Virginia's one-of-a-kind "Division Statute" (Section 57-9(A)) to apply.
The court sent the case back to the Fairfax Circuit Court, where a trial on property issues for the remaining seven Episcopal Church properties is scheduled to begin on April 25.
More information about the cases, including the Supreme Court filings, is available here.
Diocesan Secretary Burt, who is also an attorney, is continuing to oversee the litigation process, according to an April 15 letter to the diocese from Johnston. His letter was prompted by the sudden death of Diocesan Chancellor Russ Pallmore. Johnston said in the letter that he had appointed J. P. Causey Jr., as acting chancellor.