Korean congregation leaves PCUSA, seeks to keep property
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, January 12, 2005
A small Presbyterian congregation in Artesia, Calif., has decided to leave the Presbyterian Church (USA) and is asking the state’s Superior Court to rule that the denomination cannot take away its property.
A lawyer for the congregation filed papers today with Superior Court Judge David Yaffe, asking him to declare that the congregation’s property is no longer subject to the denomination’s property trust law.
The Serone Presbyterian Church filings also seek injunctions that would prevent the denomination and its governing bodies “from seeking to impose or enforce any trust on Plaintiff or any of its property, and from taking any action asserting control or dominion over the Plaintiff or its property.”
Superior Court Judge Yaffe granted the request to require that the Hamni Presbytery be ordered to show cause why a preliminary injunction should not be granted to prevent the presbytery from immediately taking over the property. Furthermore, he scheduled a hearing on the injunction on Feb. 4 “or as soon thereafter that the matter may be argued.”
In December, the California Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Methodist congregation that revoked the property trust clause of the United Methodist Church, a case that opened the doors to dissident congregations in the state being able to withdraw with their property from mainline denominations. The thrust of the California case was that the local congregation had the right, under California trust law, to revoke a trust agreement that was instituted by the denomination.
Kay Gustafson, a lawyer working with a synod administrative commission that is overseeing the work of the Hanmi Presbytery, argued that the Serone case was different from the Methodist case. Paul Jensen, a California lawyer and a member of St. Andrews’ Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach, argued that it was identical to the Methodist case.
Judge Yaffe decided that the complaint demonstrated that the Methodist and Presbyterian cases were similar enough to hold a hearing on the Serone property issue.
The Serone complaint listed the Presbytery of Hanmi, a non-geographical Korean presbytery.
A synod administrative commission has long been involved in the affairs of Hanmi Presbytery.
The property clause in the Book of Order of the Presbyterian Church (USA) is G-8.0201:
- “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.).”
Most mainline denominations have a similar trust clause, but those requirements are facing numerous legal challenges by dissident congregations in denominations that face major schisms because of church policies, such as the ordination of a homosexual bishop in the Episcopal Church (USA).
In the Serone case, according to its complaint, “there has never been created any trust, whether express or implied, by the Plaintiff. Plaintiff has never, at any time, undertaken in any way to make any trust irrevocable.”
Furthermore, the complaint added, “The Plaintiff has expressly revoked and repudiated any trust over its property … The Plaintiff has amended both its Articles of Incorporation and its Bylaws to reflect this action.”
The Serone argument did not ask the court to decide doctrinal or polity matters, but it did refer to the “Plaintiff’s commitment to the principles of Presbyterianism as articulated in the Westminster Confession, many of which principles have in practice been abandoned” by the PCUSA, as the reason “the Plaintiff has decided to end its affiliation” with the denomination.
Serone Presbyterian Church is a 33-member congregation, according to the PCUSA’s latest membership data.