Good Friday, bad news
Albany Presbytery bars embattled
church from Holy Week celebration
The Layman, April 21, 2011
For many churches, observing Good Friday is an integral part of Easter celebration – in fact, without one, the other loses meaning most theologians would contend.
For an embattled New York church, this key aspect of Holy Week will come and go without a congregational celebration.
Nearly a month after signing a separation agreement with the Presbyterian Church (USA), a New York church Jermain Memorial Ecumenical Presbyterian Church of Watervliet, N.Y. has learned that, while the church can have access on Easter Sunday to property that’s currently being finalized as part of the agreement, it will not have access to the 134-year-old church campus for Good Friday.
On March 31, Jermain signed a property and separation agreement with the Presbytery of Albany, ending a two-year battle in which the presbytery tried to shutter the church and liquidate its property and six-figure assets. Related articles
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According to church leaders, Jermain’s attorney, Rosemary Nichols, made a request to allow the church to celebrate Easter on the property. She did not mention Good Friday in the request because “she did not know the parish’s religious traditions for the Easter season,” according to a report in The Troy (N.Y.) Record on April 19.
“We have a temporary agreement for Easter,” Albany Presbytery general presbyter Cass Shaw told the media. “We’ve done our part in all of this. The request for Good Friday did not come in with enough time to decide,” adding the presbytery had agreed to cede ownership under an agreement brokered between the two parties.
Nichols called the presbytery’s decision “mean” and accused the presbytery of “[doing] everything they can to destroy this community.”
Under the agreement, the presbytery agreed to return all the land it took over after deciding to close the church in November 2009 with the exception of the manse. In return, Jermain agreed to cease identifying with the PCUSA in any way and to turn over all church records to the presbytery in exchange for copies of the entire collection. (For a copy of the agreement, click here.)
In November 2009, the presbytery moved to shutter the church, calling it “dying” and voted to close it by May 2010.
The Jermain session opposed the resolution stating, “the Word has been faithfully preached and the sacraments faithfully administered.”
Despite the church’s objections, the Synod of the Northeast sided with Albany Presbytery but extended church’s closing date, setting its final service for July 17. However, the church has been locked out since May, pending the final settlement of the agreement. The congregation has been allowed, at the presbytery’s choosing, to meet for certain holy occasions like Christmas and Easter.
But for most Christian churches, Good Friday is a vital part of the Holy Week experience, an observance that Jermain will miss this year.
“It is an important time for them,” Nichols told The Troy Record.
In the out-of-court agreement, Jermain will keep most of its property and funds and receive a dismissal from the PCUSA. However, the church’s manse – a four-bedroom house valued at an estimated $140,000 – will revert to the presbytery.
Church leaders say they now have about 115 active members, up from 45 before the church closed.
As for affiliation, church elder Jeanne Kippen insisted, in a previous article in The Layman, that Jermain would never again join a formal denomination.
“We won’t give anyone else the ammunition to close us,” she said.