Mississippi Presbytery votes against enforcing property
'Our unity rests in Christ, not in real estate'
By John H. Adams
The Layman Online
Friday, December 1, 2006

The Presbytery of Mississippi, which has historically opposed the property trust clause in the Presbyterian Church (USA), held a series of votes during a called meeting on Nov. 30 not to enforce it.

Mississippi is the first of the denomination's 173 presbyteries to repudiate the trust clause, which says, "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.)" (G-8.0201 in the Book of Order).

Weighing its congregations' commitments to the great ends of the church versus the denomination's claim to their property, the commissioners resolved that they will take "no action to enforce any general trust interest claimed by any higher governing body against any property, real or personal, held by any of its particular churches while they remain under its jurisdiction."

Furthermore, the presbytery said it will not "resist any particular church of the Presbytery of Mississippi which would ask the courts of the State of Mississippi to clear its property of any claims made by higher governing bodies against that property."

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