A.S. Haley: Christ Church Savannah, Bishop Seabury File for Review in Supreme Court

Friday, March 23, 2012

In a well-coordinated move, Christ Church in Savannah, Georgia and Bishop Seabury Church in Groton, Connecticut have each filed a petition for review of the decisions in their respective cases by the United States Supreme Court. (More on the Christ Church filing is here.) They thus join Timberridge Presbytery of Atlanta in asking the high court to correct the wretched excesses wrought by ECUSA and PCUSA as a result of Justice Blackmun's fatuous dictum in Jones v. Wolf, 443 U.S. 595 (1979).

Both of those churches have a provision in their governing documents which purports to declare and impose a trust in their favor on the individual properties of each of thousands of their member parishes. Innocently continuing to maintain and contribute to the improvement of their church buildings, the congregations in those churches never realize that they do not really own their own property -- at least, not until they start to disagree with the drift of their denominations. Then, if they seek legal advice, they all too often find out that their national church has a chokehold on their properties: if they vote to leave, they cannot remain in their buildings, or keep any donated communion vessels, altar cloths or vestments.

In his majority opinion, after holding that Georgia courts constitutionally did not have to defer to church authorities regarding the ownership of parish property, Justice Blackmun invited churches with a national superstructure to modify their governing documents. He wrote: "Alternatively, the constitution of the general church can be made to recite an express trust in favor of the denominational church. The burden involved in taking such steps will be minimal." (443 U.S. at 606.)  the rest

Georgia's 'Mother Church' fight going to Supreme Court