Judge upholds property ruling for Ohio church that left PCUSA
By Patrick Jean, The Layman, June 3, 2008
The pastor of an Ohio church that voted 19 months ago to leave the Presbyterian Church (USA) shared the good news with his congregation Sunday:
A judge last week upheld a magistrate’s October 2007 ruling that the Hudson Presbyterian Church property belongs to the portion of the congregation that voted for disaffiliation, not to those who voted against disaffiliation and now worship at a separate site under a different pastor.
“We are delighted with the ruling, and we thank God for it,” said the Rev. Dr. D. Wayne Bogue, senior pastor of Hudson Presbyterian Church. “The verdict is very affirming of our position and our rights under the state laws of Ohio, and is unequivocal in its ruling on our behalf regarding property issues and our right to disaffiliate from the PCUSA. So we’re thrilled.”
Bogue’s church in Hudson, Ohio, voted 162-61 on Nov. 5, 2006, to disaffiliate from the PCUSA. It has been embroiled since then in a church property ownership lawsuit against Eastminster Presbytery, which contends that the property belongs to the “true” Hudson Church of those who voted against disaffiliation and now worship elsewhere in Hudson under a different pastor.
The presbytery appealed the ruling in favor of Bogue’s church that was issued eight months ago by a Summit County Court of Common Pleas magistrate. In her decision issued May 23, Judge Mary F. Spicer found that the magistrate made a couple of procedural errors in not considering additional evidence filed by the presbytery, but also:
- 1. Properly found that the church’s property deeds, mortgage records and bank statements about the property “reflected that the real and personal property at issue was held by Hudson Presbyterian in fee simple, and that neither these documents nor the parties’ subsequent actions support in any manner an express trust in favor of PCUSA.”
- 2. “Made two separate filings, either of which were sufficient in themselves to grant summary judgment on Hudson Presbyterian’s behalf,” in examining the articles of incorporation that Bogue’s church filed in July 1982.
“The issue was really around property,” Bogue said. “Obviously any congregation has the right to disaffiliate and do what it wants to do as a congregation. But the issue under the law was whether or not Eastminster could lay claim using an implied trust contained in the Book of Order to lay claim to the property of the Hudson Presbyterian Church, both real and personal property.
“We’ve believed all along that we’ve had the right to disaffiliate as a congregation, as people, and also of course, we had believed that the property rightly belongs with the majority congregation that voted to disaffiliate,” he said.
Eastminster Presbytery intends to appeal Spicer’s ruling, said its general presbyter, the Rev. Dr. Dan Schomer.
“Eastminster Presbytery has already determined that those church members loyal to the Presbyterian Church (USA) should be the worshipping community that meets in the church facility,” Schomer told the Akron Beacon Journal. He did not respond to requests for comment from The Layman.
Bogue said his church, which has about 400 members and an average worship attendance of 250, has already been formally received into the New Wineskins Transitional Presbytery of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.
“We’re obviously delighted and believe that God has taken care of us all along, and will continue to do so,” he said. “We’re going to go ahead with our mission and ministry, as we always do.”