On August 19, a Fairfax County, Virginia trial court issued two more "Letter Opinions" in In re Multi-Circuit Episcopal Church Property Litigation-- the contest over property ownership between eleven break-away congregations and the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia. In prior decisions, the court ruled that Virginia's "Division Statute" is constituitonal and applies in this case. (See prior posting.) The statute permits the majority of a congregation to decide to which branch of a church its property will belong when there has been a "division" in the church. In the latest decisions, the court first rejected the assertion by ECUSA and the Diocese that the eleven churches had in some way contracted away, waived, abandoned or relinquished their right to assert rights under the Division Statute. [Full text of opnion.]
In its second opinion (full text), the court rejected claims by ECUSA and the Diocese that Virginia's Division Statute violates the Contracts Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The court concluded that the Contracts Clause protects only those contractual rights that existed before the Division Statute was first enacted in 1867. It is not enough that a congregation was in existence prior to 1867; the protection of property rights the diocese or ECUSA had in a church's property extends only to specific parcels of property acquired before 1867. Any property acquired after that date would have been acquired subject to ownership provisions in the Division Statute. Since in 1867 under Virginia law denominational bodies or dioceses could not hold title to, or obtain enforceable contractual rights in, property, the Contracts Clause does not protect any rights of the diocese or ECUSA in church properties.
Yesterday's Washington Times reported on the decision.
