Episcopal Press and News
FLORIDA: Judge orders breakaway congregation to return property to diocese
Episcopal News Service. May 7, 2007 [050707-05]
Mary Frances Schjonberg
A Florida state judge has agreed with the Episcopal Diocese of Florida's claim that it and not a group of dissidents owns the property of the Church of the Redeemer in Jacksonville.
"We expect to regain possession of the church property very soon and Episcopal worship and ministry under the leadership of the Rev. Davette Turk will be resuming at Redeemer shortly," the diocese said in a statement on its website.
Fourth Judicial Circuit Court Judge Karen K. Cole ruled on April 27 that Florida state law requires her to accept the diocese's determination of who is the rightful occupant of a congregation's property.
She wrote that the state law defers to decisions made by the "highest ecclesiastical authority" in a denomination structured as a "hierarchical church." Such a denomination is one that is organized into governing bodies of hierarchical ascending jurisdiction, Cole explained.
In 2005, the then-rector, vestry and wardens of Church of the Redeemer "found themselves in a serious theological disagreement" with Florida Bishop John Howard and "considered it impossible to accept the direct ministry of the Bishop," Cole wrote. The rector, vestry and wardens formed a new corporation, Redeemer Anglican Church, and announced they had affiliated with the Anglican Church of Uganda.
Howard ruled in January 2006 that they had abandoned the Episcopal Church and their leadership offices, and he installed a new rector, vestry and wardens. At that time, he inhibited the rector, the Rev. Neil Lebhar, along with the Rev. Samuel Pascoe, Grace Church, Orange Park; the Rev. C. Alexander Farmer, Servants of Christ, Gainesville; the Rev. James Needham, St. Luke's Community of Life, Tallahassee; the Rev. James McCaslin, All Souls, Jacksonville; the Rev. David Sandifer, Calvary, Jacksonville; and the Rev. Robert Sanders, Jacksonville Anglican Fellowship, Jacksonville.
Redeemer was one of 12 Florida congregations that announced in September 2005 that they were either congregations formed under the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA) or ones in which a majority of their members and leadership had broken ties with the Episcopal Church. The congregations were: All Souls Church–Anglican, Calvary Anglican Church, Christ the King Anglican Fellowship (AMiA), and Church of the Redeemer in Jacksonville; Church of the Advent, St Luke's Community of Life and St Peter's Anglican Church in Tallahassee; Grace Church and Emmaus Road Church (AMiA), in Orange Park; St. Michael's Church in Gainesville; St. Teresa Parish in Wakulla County; and the Anglican Fellowship of High Springs.
Six of the congregations announced in October 2005 that they had reached an agreement with Howard to amicably separate.
Howard wrote to the Redeemer dissidents in March 2006 asking them to return the Redeemer property and provide an accounting of the congregation's property. They did not do either, according to Cole.
She ruled that the disagreement "is for ecclesiastical authorities, not civil courts, to resolve," she wrote. "This Court is bound to accept the Bishop's determination as to who holds offices within the hierarchical church and, consequently, who is entitled to occupy the property."
Cole, noting that the former Redeemer leadership had agreed to give the diocese a property accounting, gave them until May 31 to do so.
Cole's order is available here.