Good Shepherd: Hearing Friday to decide local church ownership

Press and Sun-Bulletin
By William Moyer
Staff Writer
December 10, 2008

BINGHAMTON -- State Supreme Court Judge Ferris D. Lebous will be asked Friday to decide whether a local church or a regional diocese owns property on Conklin Avenue, which is occupied by Church of the Good Shepherd.

The decision, whether rendered Friday or more likely reserved by Lebous for a future date, could be a precedent in ongoing legal disputes in New York state and elsewhere between the Episcopal Church and individual congregations who've withdrawn from the national denomination.

That split came when V. Gene Robinson, a self-avowed homosexual, was ordained a bishop in 2003.

Already, a state appeals court sided with the denomination in a similar case involving the Rochester diocese and a congregation in Irondequoit, which withdrew in January 2006. All Saints Church claimed it was entitled to church property, but the court ruled in October in favor of the diocese. the rest

Congregation In Jeopardy

Controversy at Good Sheppard(sic)