WSJ: [Episcopal]Church Fights for Assets, Members and Legitimacy

As Episcopal Parishes and Dioceses Break From the National Body, Ugly Court Battles Over Valued Property Have Followed.
By AMY MERRICK
NOVEMBER 25, 2009

When the members of St. Luke's of the Mountains Church in La Crescenta, Calif., voted in 2006 to leave the Episcopal Church, they never meant they wanted to leave their church.

But last month, they got notice they were being evicted from the 80-year-old stone structure that had been their spiritual home.

The congregants lost a long legal fight for their building when a court ruled that the national Episcopal Church, which represents the world-wide Anglican Communion in the U.S., and the local diocese were the rightful owners of the property -- not the breakaway leaders.

"For many of us, leaving here will be one of the most difficult things we have ever done for God," Rev. Rob Holman said in his last sermon in the building before renting the Seventh Day Adventist Church nearby. the rest