Diocese of Virginia lawsuit:
Former Episcopal leaders reminded of vows
By Julia Duin
November 15, 2007

Conservative church leaders who left the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia after the consecration of a homosexual bishop took the stand yesterday to assert their claim on valuable properties that they say belongs to local congregations — not the national church or the diocese — during court proceedings in the largest property battle in Episcopal Church history.

Lawyers for the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Virginia questioned several leaders of 11 breakaway churches in trying to establish that Bishop Martyn Minns and Falls Church rector the Rev. John Yates, among others, violated priestly vows to be loyal to the Episcopal Church. Those vows were violated, the lawyers said, when the group led several thousand people out of the Virginia Diocese last December in protest over the 2003 consecration of Bishop V. Gene Robinson in New Hampshire. the rest