Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell has filed a motion to intervene and a brief in the church property litigation involving 11 Virginia congregations where the majority voted to leave The Episcopal Church.
“As a matter of federal constitutional law, the Episcopal Church is simply wrong,” Attorney General McConnell wrote in his motion to intervene. “The Constitution does not require that local church property disputes be resolved by deferring to national and regional church leaders.”
According to a Jan. 11 news release from the Anglican District of Virginia (ADV), Attorney General McConnell’s defense of the constitutionality of the Virginia Division Statute validates the position of the 11 churches. The brief “directly refutes arguments that were made by the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Virginia following the November trial,” said Jim Oakes, vice chairman of the ADV. “Virginia has a long history of deferring to congregational control of property. The Division Statute itself clearly states that majority rule should be the deciding factor in determining the ownership of church property when a group of congregations has divided from its former denomination.
“The Attorney General noted that the interpretation of the Statute by ADV lawyers is ‘both textually and historically accurate,’” Mr. Oakes continued. “We are confident in our legal position that the Division Statute is applicable in this case and we look forward to the resolution of this litigation.”
The trial phase of the case, which is being heard by Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge Randy Bellows, ended Nov. 20. Lawyers for the congregations were to have submitted their closing brief by Dec. 21, and the diocese and national church were scheduled to respond today. The lawyers for the congregations are to submit their reply by Jan. 17.
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2 Comments
I am amazed at the Virginia Attorney-General's insistence that Virginia State Law can allow aleniation of property rights from the Episcopal Church in the USA. Surely property of the local dioceses of TEC belongs, not to individual members of the congregations or its ministers, but to the legally constituted diocesan authority, which traditionally holds all property in perpetuity.
In other Provinces of the world-wide Anglican Church, if a local bishop or clergy-person were to decide, for their own reasons, to resign from the diocese, they cannot take the existing property rights with them. This ruling seems to me to be a grave miscarriage of justice that foreigners like myself had never imagined possible in the United States of America.
Father Ron Smith, Anglican Church of New Zealand.
I am amazed at the Virginia Attorney-General's insistence that Virginia State Law can allow aleniation of property rights from the Episcopal Church in the USA. Surely property of the local dioceses of TEC belongs, not to individual members of the congregations or its ministers, but to the legally constituted diocesan authority, which traditionally hold all property in perpetuity.
In other Propvinces of the world-wide Anglican Church, if a local bishop or clergy-person were to decide, for their own reasons, to resign from the diocese, they cannot take the existing property rights with them. This ruling seems to me to be a grave miscarriage of justice that foreigners like myself had never imagined possible in the United States of America.
Father Ron Smith, Anglican Church of New Zealand.