Trustees Retain Control of Mariners' Church in Detroit
Episcopal News Service. October 4, 1991 [91194A]
A circuit court has denied the Diocese of Michigan's request for title to the historic Mariners' Church in Detroit, ruling instead in favor of the church's board of trustees. The Rt. Rev. R. Stewart Wood, bishop of Michigan, filed a lawsuit in August 1990, citing "almost two decades of growing estrangement" between the diocese and Mariners' Church and the Rev. Richard Ingalls, the church's rector. Wood said that the church had not financially contributed to the diocese since 1976 and that Ingalls was formally deposed as an Episcopal priest in June 1990, after his pronounced stands against adoption of the 1979 Prayer Book and the ordination of women. "Our canon law is precise on the point that a parish holds its property in trust for the diocese," Wood said. Circuit Court Judge Charles Kaufman, in issuing his decision on June 19, said that while the 1842 will of Julia Ann Anderson set aside money and land for a church for transient sailors, it did not mandate the church's association with any particular denomination. Wood and other diocesan officials maintained that the church's 1849 decision to affiliate with the Episcopal Church made Mariners' the property of the diocese.