ROCHESTER: High court upholds property ruling in diocese's favor
Episcopal News Service. October 4, 2007 [100407-01]
Mary Frances Schjonberg
A New York appellate court has upheld a trial court's decision in favor of the Episcopal Diocese of Rochester on the issues surrounding All Saints' Protestant Episcopal Church in Irondequoit, New York.
The Irondequoit congregation had been at odds with the diocese over the 2003 ordination of an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire. The congregation refused to pay the assessment that it owed the diocese, and continued to use the building after it had voted to leave the Episcopal Church and after the parish had been declared extinct by the 2005 diocesan convention "because of its refusal to live by the norms, or canons, of this diocese," according to a statement issued by the diocese in March 2006 when it filed suit against the departing members.
The civil action sought a court order requiring the Rev. David Harnish, former rector of the parish known as All Saints Protestant Episcopal Church, and other members of the former vestry, who had left the Episcopal Church, to relinquish control of all of the parish's property because that property is held in trust for the Episcopal diocese and the Episcopal Church, as spelled out in numerous national and diocesan canons.
In September 2006, the trial court ruled in favor of the diocese, ordering the leadership of the former All Saints' Church to turn over to the diocese all real and personal property, including church records on baptism, marriage, confirmation, death and membership.
About 10 days after the September 13, 2006 ruling, All Saints Anglican Church vacated its Irondequoit building and turned over the keys to the diocese. The congregation, however, appealed the court ruling.
"The members of former All Saints' Church have always been free to leave the diocese and Episcopal Church but not to remain in diocesan property or take diocesan property with them," said Bishop Jack McKelvey in a diocesan statement issued at the time of the 2006 ruling.