Presbytery wants congregation to cede property authority by changing church’s charter
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, May 23, 2006
The Presbytery of Charlotte, acting through a presbytery-appointed administrative commission, has asked the congregation of Harrisburg Presbyterian Church in North Carolina to restate its articles of incorporation to ensure that the church’s property would revert to the denomination if the congregation is dissolved.
The vote on the proposal – a legal tactic that is recommended by the Office of the General Assembly of the PCUSA as part of the denomination’s effort to protect its property trust clause in chapter 8 of the Book of Order – is scheduled during a congregational meeting after the 11 a.m. worship service on Sunday, May 28.
Harrisburg Presbyterian Church, 15 miles northwest of Charlotte, is a 295-member congregation that was organized in 1967 as part of the Presbyterian Church U.S., which merged with the United Presbyterian Church (USA) in 1983 to form the current Presbyterian Church (USA).
A clause in the 1967 articles of incorporation says Harrisburg Presbyterian Church, Inc., has the sole right to “possess, sell, align and mortgage property, real and personal, for the absolute, sole and exclusive benefit of the members of the congregation … without any right, title, interest or estate, legal or equitable, existing in favor of any denomination, presbytery, synod, general assembly, or other ecclesiastical body whatever; and with the exclusive right of the civil courts to determine who are the members of said corporation.”
The presbytery’s administrative commission, which has full jurisdiction and control of the governance of the congregation, wants the congregation to approve a new corporate charter that would cede to the denomination the right to stake its claim on the church’s property and other assets if the congregation is dissolved.
Dissolution of the congregation has not been an issue in its long-running dispute with the presbytery. But there have been several flare-ups over the calls of ministers. And, according to the denomination’s official statistics, worship attendance dropped sharply – from an average of 140 in 2004 to an average of 72 in 2005.
Harrisburg is currently being served by a recently appointed interim pastor, the Rev. Warren G. Nance, an at-large member of the presbytery.
Neither of the predecessor denominations in the PCUSA had a property trust clause until shortly before 1983. The UPCUSA added its property chapter in 1981, including a declaration that congregations hold their property in trust for the benefit of the denomination.
The PCUS did the same in 1982. The two streams of mainline Presbyterianism adopted their property trust clauses in reaction to a 1979 Supreme Court ruling that recommended that courts settle church property disputes through the application of “neutral principles of law” – including incorporation papers – rather than acquiescence to the decisions of higher governing bodies.
The Plan of Union for the Northern and Southern mainline denominations, which was approved in 1982 by presbyteries in both denominations, became the original Book of Order for the PCUSA. It includes the current chapter 8. Two key provisions are:
- G-8.0101: “All property held by or for a particular church, a presbytery, a synod, the General Assembly, or the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), whether legal title is lodged in a corporation, a trustee or trustees, or an unincorporated association, and whether the property is used in programs of a particular church or of a more inclusive governing body or retained for the production of income, is held in trust nevertheless for the use and benefit of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).”
- G-8.0401: “Whenever a particular church is formally dissolved by the presbytery, or has become extinct by reason of the dispersal of its members, the abandonment of its work, or other cause, such property as it may have shall be held, used, and applied for such uses, purposes, and trusts as the presbytery may direct, limit, and appoint, or such property may be sold or disposed of as the presbytery may direct, in conformity with the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).”
The Presbytery of Charlotte wants the Harrisburg congregation to restate its charter to follow those guidelines.
Just the opposite was the intent of the congregation when it filed its articles of incorporation in 1967.
The presbytery’s proposed restatement of the articles of incorporation declares that if the congregation is dissolved by the presbytery, the presbytery would have the full authority to determine the use of the property or to dispose of it. Article 8 in the proposed new charter elaborates:
- ” … such property may be sold or disposed of as the Presbytery may direct in its conformity with the Book of Order of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).”
As an administrative commission with original jurisdiction, the Charlotte commission has absolute authority over the governance of the Harrisburg congregation, but does not have the authority to require that a congregation change its articles of incorporation to accommodate denominational property ownership assertions. Congregations must approve changes in their own corporate papers.
With 134 congregations and their 41,380 members, the Charlotte Presbytery is the fourth largest in the denomination.