c. 2007 Religion News Service
(UNDATED) Could a Civil War-era Virginia law resolve million-dollar property fights between the Episcopal Church and breakaway conservative congregations?
A county court in Northern Virginia is hearing arguments between the Episcopal Church and 11 congregations that split last January to join the more conservative Convocation of Anglicans in North America.
So, why should mainline Protestants across the country care what happens in Virginia?
“What happens in one state can certainly influence a court in another state,” said Valerie Munson, an expert in church-state law at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis. Though the rulings don’t set precedents in other states, lawyers and judges routinely cite them in these property cases, she said.
In the Virginia dispute and similar cases across the U.S., dioceses and Episcopal leaders have sung a now-familiar refrain: “You can leave, but you can’t take the property with you.”
The 11 Virginia congregations, who want their cake and $30 million properties too, have filed documents citing a law that dates to another church-splintering moment in U.S. history: the Civil War.
The Episcopal Church claims that a local church’s property _ the steeple, graveyard, etc. _ is held in trust for the national denomination. That’s the rule in our church, they say, and you (or your ancestors) knew that from the start.
To reinforce that relationship, the Episcopal Church passed what’s called the “Dennis Canon,” in 1979. To explain the trust, Munson gives this example:
A man inherits a house from his uncle; but the house is held in trust for his aunt while she’s still alive. The nephew can’t sell the house and run off to Jamaica; anything he does with the house has to be for the benefit of his aunt.
The key in the property fights is to find out what the uncle _ the “settlor” in legal terms _ intended. That’s why you have churches combing through 150-year-old deeds and laws.
And that’s why you have judges interpreting them in 2007.
Editors: RNS-WHATS-UP is a new occasional feature by Religion News Service explaining the news behind the news.
KRE/CM END BURKE