A Church Is Divided, and Headed for Court

[Woodmonkey]

A Church Is Divided, and Headed for Court


SAVANNAH, Ga. — For 274 years, there has been one Christ Church here, and it is a congregation with a proud history.

Started with a land grant from King George of England and led by famous names like John Wesley and George Whitfield, Christ Church has been the spiritual home of some of this city’s most notable residents, including Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts.

So it was unsettling, to say the least, for some longtime members when Christ Church, which is believed to be the first church established in Georgia, voted recently to part ways with the Episcopal diocese it had been a part of for more than 200 years to join an Anglican diocese in Uganda.

“I just feel a tremendous loyalty to this church, and I am confused about this situation,” said Frances R. Maclean, 85, a member of Christ Church for 55 years who saw her children baptized and then married in its century-old chapel. “What is this business about Uganda?”

Since 2003, when the Episcopal Church affirmed its first openly gay bishop, roughly 55 parishes nationwide have split with the denomination to affiliate with more conservative Anglican dioceses in Africa, according to records kept by the national church.

At issue for these breakaway parishes is whether churches that condone same-sex relationships are still following the Bible, and the Episcopal denomination is not the only one affected by the debate.

The mainline Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has also seen a number of its congregations vote to leave in recent years to join the more conservative Evangelical Presbyterian Church.

The religious rifts, including the one here, have flooded courts nationwide with civil lawsuits over church property, an area of jurisprudence where courts, as they try to navigate First Amendment separations of church and state, are notoriously uncomfortable.

“As a state body we have to abstain from any involvement in religious disputes,” said John Witte Jr., director of the study of law and religion at Emory University in Atlanta, and “every property dispute has a doctrinal dimension that a court can’t touch.”

Judges must decide if individual parishes own the buildings where the members worship, or if those parishes are holding their property in trust for the larger church hierarchy, an arrangement many denominations have codified in their canons.

At Christ Church, the split has created two congregations, both of which are claiming the name and assets of the parish.

The newly Anglican congregation, with about 300 regular members, continues to meet in the stately chapel with its tall, white-columned facade, which is parked on the edge of Johnson Square like the grille of a giant Rolls-Royce.

The 75 or so members of Christ Church who continue to be affiliated with the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia are meeting, for the time being, at the more modest St. Michael and All Angels Church on Washington Street.

Both are using pictures of the historic church building on their Web sites.

“There are some members of Christ Church who are going to services at both places,” said Mark C. McDonald, executive director of the Historic Savannah Foundation, the institution that has worked with the Women of Christ Church to put on a tour of historic homes for the past 72 years. “That’s how they perceive themselves. Not as Anglicans or Episcopalians, just as members of Christ Church.”

The split at the church, which has divided families and friends, has reached a level of rancor rarely seen in this city, where disputes are often mollified, or at least forgotten, with the help of a well-attended cocktail party and where some tour guides still refer to the Civil War as “that late unpleasantness.”

Speaking to her congregation on Oct. 14, just before congregants voted on the decision to disaffiliate with the Episcopal Church, Janet Stone, 63, a member of Christ Church since 1975, pleaded for unity.

“I beg you to stop this fight and seek reconciliation,” Ms. Stone said. “It would be a powerful witness.”

Moments later, 87 percent of the congregation voted to support the split.

In November, the Diocese of Georgia filed a lawsuit to keep control of Christ Church’s assets, which include a $3 million historic building and an endowment estimated at $2 million to $3 million.

Its claim is based on a church law, adopted in the 1970s, called the Dennis Canon, which says that all parishes hold their property in trust for the diocese. But Christ Church, which was established in 1733, asserts that it has firm legal footing to keep control of its building and property because it existed before the Episcopal denomination, which was established in the United States in 1789.

“That would make the case a pure property case rather than a religious liberty case,” Mr. Witte said. “They will have to argue that their church is closer to the values of the late 18th century” than the Episcopal Church is today.

And that, he added, is “an argument that hasn’t been tested in federal courts.”

The Source