F.C. Episcopal Church Faces Fight to Keep Property After Voting to Exit Denomination
By Nicholas F. Benton
Wednesday, 22 November 2006

The Falls Church Episcopal Church’s hopes that it could hold onto its property in downtown Falls Church even as it exited the mainstream Episcopal Church denomination took a turn for the worse last week.

Two days after the local conservative church’s ruling body, called a vestry, voted 15-2 to leave the larger denomination, the denomination’s Richmond-based regional diocese reacted by denying that any “protocol” was in place to settle resultant property disputes.

The leadership of Falls Church Episcopal Church, with the Rev. John Yates as rector and a membership of 2,484, reacted strongly against the November 2003 Episcopal Church consecration of the openly-gay Rev. Eugene Robinson as a bishop. Since then, the church and an ally, the Truro Episcopal Church of Fairfax, have spearheaded a movement of churches to exit the denomination, citing what they claim was, in fact, “a disagreement spanning the past four decades over basic truths of the Christian faith.”

But under the rules of the 2.2-million member Episcopal denomination, each of its diocese own all the real estate of the churches under its control. By those rules, if the Falls Church Episcopal finalizes its decision to leave the denomination at a vote of the entire congregation early next month, the church members will have to vacate the historic downtown Falls Church site, and its church-owned surroundings, where George Washington was once a vestryman. the rest