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'57-9' or fight! A Virginia court upholds law
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A parishioner lights candles at The Falls Church, one of the most prominent parishes in Virginia to vote to leave the Episcopal Church and join with Anglican conservatives.
JACQUELYN MARTIN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Seceding Virginia Parishes Win First Round
Date published: 4/11/2008
GROVE CITY, Pa.-- The 12 Virginia Episcopal congregations that voted to leave the Episcopal Church in the U.S.A. (ECUSA) and its Virginia Diocese in late 2006 and early 2007 have been successful in the first round of what promises to be a protracted legal battle.
At stake is whether these local parishes can retain their church property, estimated to be worth $30 million to $40 million. When the local churches voted to exit, both the ECUSA and the diocese began lawsuits against the departing churches claiming, among other things, that the local congregants were trespassers in their own sanctuaries.
Now a Virginia judge who is hearing the cases, the Honorable Randy I. Bellows, has issued a carefully worded and tightly reasoned 83-page opinion, which decides a crucial but preliminary issue: Was a Virginia law--which provides a process by which a local church can disaffiliate from its denomination--properly used by the departing churches? Judge Bellows has found, in short, that it was.
A quick review of the facts: The Virginia churches (parishes), some with histories dating back to America's founding, withdrew from the ECUSA by overwhelming majority votes among their members. These members determined that the ECUSA, its mother denomination, was moving further and further away from scriptural and traditional principles.
The final affront to the spiritual sensibilities of the parishioners was the denomination's ordination of an openly gay man (currently living with a same-sex partner) as bishop of New Hampshire. Also endorsed was the clerical blessing of same-sex unions.
The 12 parishes not only left the ECUSA but put themselves under the ecclesiastical authority of certain African bishops through the Convocation of Anglicans of North America (CANA). This move kept them within the worldwide Anglican Communion but freed them from the oversight of the ECUSA.
Judge Bellows ruled that it was proper for the seceding churches to make use of a Virginia law called "57-9." Under its provisions, if a "division" occurs in a church or religious society, a congregation, by majority vote of the members, may choose to disaffiliate with that denomination and affiliate anew with another. Once the membership vote indicates the desire on the part of the majority of parishioners to make the change, the vote must be reported to the local county court, which confirms that the title to and control of the property belongs to the congregation.
Date published: 4/11/2008
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