Episcopal News Service January 18, 2007
Virginia leadership declares church property 'abandoned'
Bishop says 'spiritual abandonment' of Episcopalians 'perhaps the greatest offense'
By Mary Frances Schjonberg
[ENS] The Executive Board of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia (http://thediocese.net) January 18 authorized Bishop Peter Lee to "take such steps as may be necessary to recover or secure such real and personal property" of 11 congregations where a majority of the members and leaders have left the Episcopal Church.
The authorization came after the Executive Board declared the property to be abandoned under the diocese's canonical definitions (Canons 15.1, 15.2, 15.3), according to a statement posted on the diocese's website (http://www.thediocese.net/press/pressroom.shtml).
Lee has not taken any immediate actions, diocesan spokesperson Patrick Getlein said.
According to the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church, dioceses are created or dissolved only by acts of General Convention (Articles V and VI) and dioceses create or dissolve Episcopal congregations in their midst. Congregational property is held in trust for the diocese, and the diocese holds property in trust for the wider church (Canon I.7.4 of the Episcopal Church). Virginia's diocesan canons concur with the national canons.
Also on January 18, the diocese's Standing Committee, during its regular monthly meeting, took up the issue of the status of the clergy attached to these congregations and "will communicate its determination to the Bishop according to the Canons," the news release said.
Lee, in a letter (http://www.thediocese.net/press/pressroom.shtml) to the diocese, also released January 18, wrote that when the majority of the congregations' membership agreed to leave, "they left remaining Episcopal congregations in those places without vestries, without clergy and without their churches, whether the remaining congregations numbered one or 100 souls."
"The spiritual abandonment of their Episcopal brothers and sisters of the past, the present and the future, is perhaps the greatest offense for which there is no redress under our tradition," he wrote.
Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_81289_ENG_HTM.htm
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