Breakaway Churches and Ownership

Today's Advocate.com has a short news item on three Los Angeles area churches which have broken away from the Episcopal Church, largely over the confirmation of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire last year. A number of conservative parishes have objected to a gay man being placed in this position of church authority. The current news is about the ongoing dispute over the parish property and assets, over which the Los Angeles Episcopal Diocese is asserting ownership. The parishes dispute this.



This summer LegalAffairs.org had an in depth article, Exodus. Numbers. Judges. on this story and how it is unfolding in other parishes around the country. Included is history, current issues and the authority given to church law by the secular courts.



UPDATE: Interestingly, a lawsuit has been filed here in Massachusetts, but with rather different circumstances. The Archdiocese of Boston is closing 82 churches this year, but the parishioners at St. Albert the Great in Weymouth are fighting the decision. They are at this time engaged in a sit-in, and have filed suit claiming that the church building and assets belong to the members of the church, not the Archdiocese. The results of these different cases, one in which the Church hierarchy wants to keep the property (but the parishioners want out of the fold), and the other in which the Church wants to get rid of it (while the parishioners want to stay with the church).