A Fairfax County judge dealt the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Virginia a third defeat in their efforts to retain millions of dollars of church property being held by 11 breakaway congregations.
On Tuesday, Circuit Judge Randy I. Bellows ruled on whether the U.S. Constitution’s contracts clause applies to the case and whether the breakaway churches had the right to invoke what’s been termed the “division statute,” an 1867 law that allows a majority of a breakaway church to retain the property.
The judge said the contracts clause would apply to any church property before 1867; however, historically in Virginia, denominations could not own church property at the time; only trustees of each church could.
The diocese and the Episcopal Church had asserted in an Aug. 11 hearing that even if they did not own the properties, they had vested pre-contractual rights to them.
[i]During a May 28 hearing, the Episcopal Church and the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia argued the division statute discriminates against hierarchical denominations by imposing democratic government on them, enabling a congregation to leave the church with its property upon a majority vote of that congregation.[/i]
Let me get this straight; TEC is hierachical when it comes to property ownership but democratic (GC) when it comes to Scriptural interpretation.
“Yossarian: Whoo… That’s some catch, that Catch-22.”
They’re just being “prophetic” when in comes to innovation. The word ‘democratic’ is a living word and subject to re-interpretation of what is happening within the culture.
I think that the good bishop of VA ought to now go to the PB and ask that he be reimbursed for the legal costs incurred and the money lost when (if) he was advised to drop the settlement talks.