Juridics: Pisteutics: Episcopalian Diocese of Virginia goes to court to seize properties of new Anglican District of Virginia

Washington Times carries an article by Julia Duin, "Church schism set for Va. court" (May21,2k7).

The mother of all lawsuits pitting Episcopalian against Anglican kicks off today in the red-brick confines of Fairfax County Circuit Court.

The case has amassed numerous court filings involving 11 churches, two dozen lawyers, 107 individuals, the 90,000-member Diocese of Virginia, the 2.3 million-member Episcopal Church and the 18.5 million-member Anglican Province of Nigeria.

The Episcopal Church and its Virginia Diocese are suing 11 churches, their clergy and lay leaders for leaving the diocese last winter in order to join the Nigerian province. Since the 2003 consecration of the openly homosexual New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson, conservatives have been fleeing the denomination.

The 11 churches of the new District of Virginia, part of the Convocation of Anglicans of North America, a mission of the Anglical Province of Nigeria, are as follows: Celebration Church, Christ the Redeemer, Christ the Savior Anglican, Church of our Saviour (Oatlands), Church of the Apostles, Church of the Epiphany, Church of the Messiah, Church of the Word, Potomac Falls Church, St Margaret’s, St Paul’s, St Stephen’s, The Falls Church, Truro Church

Some of the nation's top law firms are involved in the fight, including the 750-attorney firm Goodwin Procter. One of its partners, David Beers, is chancellor for the Episcopal Church. Hourly rates for partners at the firm go as high as $475, according to filings in a 2006 case in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

The defendants are having to pony up huge amounts as well. The Falls Church, oldest of the 11 churches, has announced it will have a special collection June 10 to defray $342,576 in unpaid legal expenses.

Virginia Theological Seminary historian Robert Prichard said that in terms of the number of individuals and fair-market value of the historic properties, this may be the Episcopal Church's largest lawsuit ever.

He declined to predict the winner of the dispute. "I've got better sense than that," he said.

Circuit Judge Randy Bellows, no stranger to high-profile cases, will preside. He's the former assistant U.S. attorney who was the lead prosecutor on the "American Taliban" case of John Walker Lindh, and the investigator called upon to examine how the FBI bungled its espionage probe of Taiwanese-American scientist Wen Ho Lee.

The plaintiffs' main complaint is not that several thousand people have exited the diocese, but that they took millions of dollars of church property with them.

The suit also charges that members who wanted to stay Episcopalian -- mostly tiny minorities, but in two cases, one-quarter of the parish -- were not granted separate services on church property.

But the new Anglican District has adopted these classical Episcopalian resources, but including some recent ones of the worldwide Anglican Communions with which the Episcopal Church is not in harmony ("impaired communion"): The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion [of the Church of England](1562), Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral (1886, 1888), The Episcopalian Church Book of Common Prayer (1662, update 1928 USA), Lambeth (1998) Resolution 1.10 on Human Sexuality, Primates’ Statement (Oct23,3k3), The Windsor Report (2004), Primates’ Statement (Feb2k5), To Set Our Hope on Christ (TEC’s response at the Anglican Consultative Council Meeting in Nottingham, 2005), Primates’ Statement (Sept2k6), Primates’ Communique (Dar es Salaam, 2007)

"There were people who wanted to worship as Episcopalians," diocesan spokesman Patrick Getlein says. "They were denied that. That was really quite something for the bishop and the diocese to hear, that there were Episcopalians turned out of their churches."

Leaders of the departing churches say no one has been made to leave and that the diocese has made it impossible for 21 departing clergy -- all under an ecclesiastical "inhibition" order -- to function as Episcopal priests.

Mary McReynolds, chancellor of the Anglican District of Virginia, the new ecclesiastical body for the 11 churches, said the diocese and the churches hammered out a "protocol" allowing conservatives to leave. The diocese then appointed a property commission to look at the assets of each church and levy an amount each church must pay in order to leave. Then on Jan. 31, the diocese filed lawsuits against each of the 11 churches.

"The members of the property commission were embarrassed by this situation," she said. "It was such an about-face. It took 13 months to negotiate that protocol."

Leaders of the departing churches, she added, suspect the diocese was pressured by church headquarters in New York to fight for the property.

"The curious thing is, not only did [Virginia] Bishop [Peter J.] Lee do a 180-degree turn," she said, "but the Episcopal Church had a policy of all property matters deferring to the diocesan bishop."

Mr. Getlein said the diocese never agreed on the protocol. "It was a work product given to the [diocesan] executive board and the standing committee, but they never agreed to it," he said. "It was nothing official."

Opening briefs filed by both sides are expected to take up the summer. Oral arguments may not start until the fall.

The crux of the case is a state law that spells out that in a division within a denomination, the congregation can retain its property if a majority votes to disassociate.

The diocese's position is that the properties are owned by the trustees as long as the congregation remains Episcopal. If it leaves the denomination, it forfeits ownership.

In another development, but one not involving the public courts, is the latest move by the Episcopal Church USA's Diocese of Fort Worth, as reported Episcopal Life by Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg, "FORT WORTH: Diocese renews its oversight request, proposes new structures" (May17,2k7):

The leadership of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth voted May 14 to move ahead with its appeal for alternative oversight from a primate other that Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori.

Juridics > Episcos USA vs Anglicans USA

A statement issued May 16 and signed by the bishop and standing committee of the Diocese of Fort Worth proposes three different ways in which such a change might happen. They include:

* forming a new Anglican province of the Anglican Communion in North America in a cooperative effort with other dioceses "in consultation with Primates of the Anglican Communion;"
* transferring to another existing province of the Anglican Communion; or
* seeking the status of an extra-provincial diocese, under the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Fort Worth Bishop Jack Iker and the diocese's General Convention deputation announced at the 75th General Convention June 19 -- the morning after Jefferts Schori's election -- that the diocesan Standing Committee had asked the Archbishop of Canterbury for what it called "alternative primatial oversight" (APO). That call was subsequently endorsed by the diocese's Executive Council and its convention.

"The Bishop and diocese remain firmly convinced of the need for alternative oversight," the May 16 statement said.

Therefore, the statement said, the Standing Committee adopted a statement assessing "the current situation" and proposing to "actively pursue all viable options." The diocesan Executive Council subsequently adopted that stance.

"While we remain open to the possibility of negotiation and some form of acceptable settlement with [the Episcopal Church], it appears that our only option is to seek APO elsewhere," the statement said.

Varieties of Christianities > Anglicans

The requests for APO have changed several times in the months since June 2006. After Fort Worth made its initial request June 19 it entered into a formal request July 20 that the Archbishop of Canterbury appoint a "commissary" for the dioceses of Pittsburgh, Central Florida, Dallas, San Joaquin, South Carolina, and Springfield. In September 2006, Dallas Bishop Jim Stanton confirmed that his diocese had withdrawn from the July 20 request and in October the Diocese of Quincy (Illinois) joined the APO request.

(A commissary is a kind of overseer used by the Bishop of London for the colonies which later became the United States and then left the Church of England.)

Then in early November at its convention, the Diocese of Pittsburgh reverted to an APO request. Three different versions of that request have appeared on Pittsburgh's website since July 2006, including one in February that appealed to Anglican Primates in the Global South.

In late November 2006, Jefferts Schori and a group of bishops announced an alternative structure for the APO requests. The plan revolved around a "primatial vicar" who would be the Presiding Bishop's designated pastor to bishops and dioceses that have requested such oversight. The primatial vicar would have been accountable to the Presiding Bishop and would have reported to an advisory panel that would consist of the designee of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Presiding Bishop's designee, a bishop of The Episcopal Church selected by the petitioning dioceses, and the President of the House of Deputies (or designee).

The May 16 statement from Fort Worth noted that "the appellant bishops rejected the proposal as unacceptable."

The APO requests were discussed at the February meeting of the Anglican Primates, who proposed the appointment of a primatial vicar nominated by bishops who have declared themselves to be "Windsor bishops," that is those who say they are committed to the proposals for life in the Communion suggested in the Windsor Report. The vicar would have been accountable to a pastoral council established by the Primates.

The Episcopal Church's House of Bishops rejected that plan during its March meeting, saying it "would be injurious to The Episcopal Church" and urging that the Executive Council decline to participate in it.

The bishops said the so-called pastoral scheme violates Episcopal Church law because it calls for a delegation of primatial authority not permissible under the Canons and would compromise the church's autonomy, which the bishops said was not permissible under the church's constitution. They also said the scheme "fundamentally changes the character of the Windsor process and the covenant design process in which we thought all the Anglican Churches were participating together," violates the church's "founding principles," and changes the leadership structure of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion.

The Fort Worth statement criticized Jefferts Schori's response to the Windsor Report, saying she "has failed to seek implementation of the essential requests" made by the Primates in February. The statement also criticized her theology.

"For all these reasons and others, we do not wish to be affiliated with her, nor with anyone she may appoint or designate to act on her behalf," the statement said.

In other words, the Diocese of Forth Worth regards the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church to be an apostate and that whole denomination, of which Forth Worth is a part while in a state of protest, is headed toward fullscale apostasy under her presidency.