Court to rule on status of Georgia church: CEN 8.21.09 August 28, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Georgia, Property Litigation.trackback
| First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The fate of the ‘mother church’ of the Diocese of Georgia in the USA is in the hands of a Savannah court after arguments were presented last week in litigation over the secession of Christ Church, Savannah from the Episcopal Church. Founded in 1733, the landmark church in downtown Savannah is the oldest church in the state of Georgia and numbered among its early rectors John Wesley and George Whitefield. The primates in Dar es Salaam had given the Episcopal Church the “final call” to “return to the central tenets of Christianity,” the vestry said. The failure to conform to the church’s historic teachings had left the parish no choice but to secede, as “our first allegiance is to the Lord Jesus Christ and God’s word revealed to us in the Holy Bible,” the parish’s senior warden said after the split. |
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On Sept 30, 2007, the vestry of Christ Church voted to quit the diocese and move under the oversight of Uganda’s US Bishop John Guernsey, after the US House of Bishops ignored the primates’ request for the Episcopal Church to conform to the Communion’s teachings on human sexuality.
Georgia Bishop Henry Louttit responded that while people may leave the Episcopal Church, congregations may not, and moved to depose the church’s clergy and replaced the parish vestry. Litigation ensued and on Aug 14 the Chatham County Superior Court heard a motion from the diocese and the national church seeking summary judgment against the congregation seeking immediate possession of the building and assets of the parish.
During the two-hour hearing before Judge Michael Karpf, lawyers for the national church and diocese argued that in property disputes within “hierarchical churches” the court must defer to the church’s canon law. The court must therefore follow the Episcopal Church’s 1979 “Dennis Canon,” which created a trust on all parish property in favour of the diocese and national church, and grant them possession.
Lawyers for the parish responded that Christ Church had been founded as congregation of the Church of England in the colony of Georgia. In the wake of the American Revolution, in 1789 the Georgia legislature transferred ownership of the congregation from the Crown to the wardens of the congregation. While the congregation had joined in union with the Diocese of Georgia, this accession to the diocesan constitution and canons was not open ended, and could be revoked, they argued.
Questions were also raised over the legal validity of the Dennis Canon, with the parish’s attorneys arguing that as a New York corporation, the national Episcopal Church must comply with statutory mandates that require associations that claim an interest in one of its member’s property to give advanced notice of that claim. When it passed the Dennis Canon, no proper notice was given under New York or Georgia law, rendering the national church’s claims legally unenforceable, the lawyers said.
A decision is not expected for some weeks, and will likely be appealed by the disappointed party.
