Property ruling in AME Zion case favors church leaving denomination
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, August 7, 2002
If it continues to advance through the courts, a church property case in Maryland could have an impact on church documents that require local congregations to forfeit their property if they leave their denominations.
The Court of Appeals of the state of Maryland ruled in a church property dispute that “consent to holding property in trust during the course of affiliation [with a denomination] does not automatically constitute consent to relinquishing that property once the affiliation terminates.” The seven-judge panel was unanimous in ruling in favor of a Maryland congregation that broke away from the AME Zion Church.
The Presbyterian Church (USA) Constitution requires that all property in the denomination be held in trust for the “use and benefit” of the PCUSA. Section G-8.0201 of the Book of Order spells it out: “All property held by or for a particular church, a presbytery, a synod, the General Assembly or the Presbyterian Church (USA), 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 (USA).”
The AME Zion Church has a similar constitutional provision, but the Maryland court ruled in favor of a minister and congregation that broke away from the denomination with $40 million in property (including two sanctuaries and a Learjet). The panel’s ruling overturned a lower-court decision that favored the denomination.
Jack Lipson, the attorney for the Rev. John A. Cherry of From the Heart Ministries in Temple Hills, Md., formerly an AME Zion congregation, told reporters that the decision could prompt other congregations and denominations to re-examine their governing documents.
A state appeals court ruling is far from being the law of the land, and courts generally shy away from dealing with doctrinal or constitutional issues in churches because of the “wall of separation” between church and state.
But Lipson argued that the AME Zion’s constitution included “no express provision dealing with the disposition of church property when a local church disaffiliates from the denomination and certainly there is not an express provision mandating that such church relinquish its property upon that occurrence.”
In the PCUSA, the constitution [G-8.0300] establishes a range of possible actions if “a particular church … ceases to be used by that church as a particular church of the Presbyterian Church (USA).” Those actions require that “such property shall be held, used, applied, transferred or sold as provided by the presbytery.”
Under the Maryland court’s interpretation, a test case in the PCUSA would have to determine whether those possibilities constituted an “express provision dealing with the disposition of church property.”
Another section of the PCUSA Constitution is less clear about what presbyteries are required to do if a local congregation wants to leave the denomination. Included among the constitutional duties of presbyteries is G-11.0103i – “to divide, dismiss, or dissolve churches in consultation with their members.”
Presbyteries have reacted in a number of ways to that requirement, ranging from allowing a congregation to leave with its property to assuming control of the property. In a recent case, the Presbytery of Hudson River allowed a Presbyterian congregation in Circleville, N.Y., to leave the PCUSA and affiliate with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, but the departing church was required to pay the presbytery $112,000 – the equivalent of a tithe on the value of its property.
Another section of the PCUSA Constitution addresses property ownership claims that arise from a schism in the congregation. G-8.0601 says, “If there is a schism within the membership of a particular church and the presbytery is unable to effect a reconciliation or a division into separate churches within the Presbyterian Church (USA), the presbytery shall determine if one of the factions is entitled to the property because it is identified by the presbytery as the true church within the Presbyterian Church (USA). This determination does not depend upon which faction received the majority vote within the particular church at the time of the schism.”