The Georgia Supreme Court has ruled in favor of The Episcopal Church in its case against a breakaway congregation. The Georgia Supreme Court, which heard the case on May 9, affirmed the Georgia Court of Appeals’ July 2010 in a 6-1 ruling in favor of the Episcopalians. That ruling upheld Superior Court Judge Michael L. Karpf’s October 27, 2009 judgment that the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia is entitled to legal possession of the historic Christ Church building and other Church assets for the benefit of those who remain faithful to the Diocese and The Episcopal Church.
“While we are grateful that a third court has upheld our legal rights to the property held in trust for The Episcopal Church for more than 200 years, whatever satisfaction we feel in prevailing in the courts is muted by the knowledge that this decision is painful for some of our brothers and sisters in Christ,” Bishop Benhase said referring to the congregation that disaffiliated from The Episcopal Church while continuing to occupy church property. He added, “As Christians we know that even those with whom we disagree are also seeking to follow Jesus faithfully. While we were forced to take action when the breakaway congregation deprived the thriving congregation of Christ Church Episcopal of the property we hold in trust for them on Johnson Square, we know that both groups share faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of the world.”
The vote was 87% to 13% or something like that. It looks like the thriving congregation did not leave. But now it is about the spin.
[blockquote]While we are grateful that a third court has upheld our legal rights to the property held in trust for The Episcopal Church for more than 200 years[blockquote]
200? Try 32. Of course, even then, the whole point is disputing their claims of “trust” to begin with.
A Pyrrhic victory, no doubt. Now TEC Diocese of Georgia gets to see if they can fill this large and historic building with enough people to pay for its staffing and upkeep. Oh, and btw, they won’t be able to do that, actually, since most everyone in Savannah is probably hostile to denominational carpetbaggers taking a community asset from the people who live there.
The bishop will make this his cathedral and sell off property to offset the economic loss of the maintenance of the old buildings. They may get ten years.
Lions 6 : Christians 1 Statmann
I commend the Christian tone of Bishop Benhaze and wonder how that might be followed through, assuming that he means it?
Pageantmaster,
TEC, the Dio GA, and the faux church sued the rector and vestry individually as well as the Anglican Christ Church. If Benhase were truly Christian, he would (for a start) compel 815 to drop these attacks on these very good and faithful people. Pardon me, however; I’m not holding my breath.
No. 7: if the Bishop had not allowed the use of legal process, would the remaining Episcopalians at Christ Church been allowed to continue Episcopal worship there as Episcopalians? The litigation was not an “attack” on “these very good and faithful people.” It was a defensive reaction to their assertion of possession of the property and an act of protection of other “very good and faithful people” who, through no fault of their own, had been cast out of a church home that had been the site of Episcopal worship for generations. The first action was the departing group’s claim of ownership and their exclusion of continuing Episcopalian worshippers. All that happened after that was what was required of the Diocese and the Bishop in protection of the property and those who chose not to leave. No Bishop could allow factions within parishes to just willy-nilly leave to affiliate with other churches, evict those who chose to stay, and then assert ownership of the buildings on a going forward basis. It’s hard to imagine a more radical or anarchical system for managing church property. The court readily recognized this when it stated quite simply (my paraphrase) that people are free to leave – they aren’t free to take things when they go.
Surely great fault lies with those who misled the congregation into thinking they might take the property with them. It has proved to be a cruel deception.
One wonders how that 87% might have been changed if they had simply stated they are going elsewhere to maintain their faith?
This idea “stay and fight” is cancerous.
I note the Greek Orthodox Church intervened in this case in support of TEC.
Because leaving to join or found a new church is a relatively uncomplicated process, No. 9 (although the underlying thought process of deciding to leave must be very difficult and complex for some people), I have always felt that these wasteful and damaging attempts to claim property by departing are, at least in some measure, attributable to precisely the point you suggest – that those leading the departure are concerned that unless they can offer a modicum of continuity with old surroundings (and the attendant economy of not having to do what most new groups do – pool resources to build new facilities), the numbers of those leaving would be much reduced. A tragedy of this approach, however, is that the costs of paying lawyers to defend a very precarious legal position at some point outweighs the economy of just taking over a building from folks who stayed behind and occupying it for one’s own worship. I suspect that many of the occupier factions could have built splendid new buildings with what it has cost to engage in the litigation process. Those new buildings could have been a visual witness to the principles that led these pilgrims to depart for organizations that they felt better reflected their faith and understanding of the Good News. That treasure is now sunk in kitchen upgrades, BMWs, greens fees, and resort tabs.
#7 Sophy 0075
I agree the history is unChristian, but Benhaze is a new bishop and has expressed himself in Christian terms in this letter. I suppose I was musing on how a Christian leader might deal with this situation, but I have no idea what that would look like. I doubt that telling people to get out or that they could buy it but disaffiliate from any church would cut the mustard. I guess my question is will he put his actions where his mouth is?
#8 NoVA Scout
[blockquote]if the Bishop had not allowed the use of legal process, would the remaining Episcopalians at Christ Church been allowed to continue Episcopal worship there as Episcopalians?[/blockquote]
Judging by what happened in Virginia, the answer is yes.
I see no evidence of anyone being evicted, although if the minority behaved as those in Virginia did, they would not have worshipped in Christ Church as a matter of principle [or instructions from headquarters]
As the dissenting opinion shows, attempts to portray this as ethically, ecclesially or legally cut and dried are wishful thinking and so the comments of Martin Reynolds as well as yourself have to be seen in that light. I expect that if Athanasius was in TEC, KJS would be plotting his removal as we speak.
But of course, at another level, this comes down to TEC’s disobedience to scripture, and the deliberate tearing of the fabric of our church they with encouragement have engaged in. Had you been faithful to our Lord Jesus Christ and His Word, you would not be in the mess you are.
But you decided you knew better, and so your attendance figures are going through the floor, people are leaving with or without their buildings, your finances are shot and you have made yourselves and us in the Communion a scandal in Christendom and a soap opera for our journalists.
But keep worrying about scorching the earth around you, and on no account ask why you have no money for mission, no new people coming in, and why having turned your back on the Head of the church, it is collapsing around you.
My suggestion is that if what you are doing is not working, might it be worth reconsidering what you are doing? Get out that historical book, the Bible, and hear its message of love, sacrifice, redemption and transformation into new life following what has always been the ‘narrow way’.
IIRC, before any of this started, Christ Church attempted several times to meet with former Bishop Loutitt who claimed to be unable to do so, even though the diocesan offices are only a few blocks from their church.
Now it’s time for that “vital” 13% of stayers to support the maintenance of this historic structure. Does anyone seriously believe they can to do this without serious help from the diocese?
I wonder how Christ Church Episcopal will look and sound in a few years with a dome on top, front doors painted green, and Muslim calls to prayer blasting out from loudspeakers when the “thriving†“continuing†congregation can no longer afford to keep the doors open and the building is sold as a large, oddly-shaped mosque?
[blockquote]I commend the Christian tone of Bishop Benhaze and wonder how that might be followed through, assuming that he means it?[/blockquote]
Ditto. I’ve been in contact with some friends in that diocese. They point out that in the conflict, the diocese has not spoken out against the Christian beliefs and values of the CCS folks, but that the opposite is not true.
They also believe that this new bishop, who inherited the mess from his predecessor, wants to resolve the situation in a Christian manner.
We shall, indeed, find out if he means it. If, for instance, the police were to come in to CCS’s Thanksgiving Service and evict the CCS Rector and his flock – that would give us something tangible to comment about, rather than continuing to engage in uninformed speculation that CC will become a mosque, will be used for human sacrifices, etc.
In a best-of-all-worlds situation, the CCS people could rent use of the facility from the parish, for a nominal sum.
RE: “Surely great fault lies with those who misled the congregation into thinking they might take the property with them. It has proved to be a cruel deception.”
A typically infantile and silly assertion by Martin Reynolds — Christians who believe the Gospel in TEC have always understood that the odds of the courts ruling correctly were up in the air and that nothing was a sure thing.
There was no deception.
Nobody was “misled.”
RE: “One wonders how that 87% might have been changed if they had simply stated they are going elsewhere to maintain their faith?”
Heh — I think we’ll all see how many of the 87% “return” to the property — as we’ve seen in dioceses or parishes where people have lost their property in the past. The answer — little to none over the past 8 years.
PM (No. 11): I don’t understand your reference to Virginia. From direct experience, I can tell you that those of us who elected not to leave the Episcopal Church in 2006 were not allowed to continue to worship as Episcopalians at our church, which was occupied (and continues to be occupied) by departees who affiliated with a mission church from Nigeria. We have been in exile ever since. It is my understanding that something similar happened to continuing Episcopalians at Christ Church in Savannah. This is part of my perplexity about these property issues: when and by what mechanism are the rights to worship in these properties of those who choose not to leave extinguished when another parishioner or group of parishioners do leave? The Georgia court seemed to pick up on that.