Other state courts, including those in New York, California and Colorado, have sided with the Episcopal Church in recent decisions over property rights.
Still, courts seem to be moving away from a deferential approach to church property disputes, meaning they do not always defer to internal church rules, said Robert Tuttle, a church-state expert at the George Washington University Law School.
“At the macro level, that’s the shift,” he said. “Because courts just don’t like the idea of having to ignore the specific claims of the parties, and saying `if you’re part of this church, that’s the story.”‘