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Email to FriendVIRGINIA: Diocese, Episcopal Church, other faith groups oppose Attorney General's intervention
The motion also said that the state "lacks any right or interest in the subject matter," namely the property unlawfully occupied by individuals in the now-Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA) breakaway congregations.
The diocese and the Episcopal Church raised no objections, however, to the Attorney General filing an amicus curiae, or friend of the court brief, on the matter of the constitutionality of Section 57-9 of the Code of Virginia, which governs property rights when there is a so-called "division" of a church or religious society.
The diocese and the Episcopal Church have argued that it would be unconstitutional for the court to apply section 57-9 in such a way to rule that a division had occurred within the diocese or the denomination at large. Such a ruling would be an unconstitutional intrusion by the state into the affairs, doctrine and polity of a hierarchical church, the release said.
A trial was held in November on the interpretation and application of that section of the Code of Virginia. Fairfax Circuit Court Judge Randy I. Bellows has not yet issued a ruling. The third and final post-trial brief ordered by Bellows was filed January 17.
In their motion, the diocese and the Episcopal Church cited a 2005 letter from the office of then-Attorney General Judith Williams Jagdmann to then-Sen. Bill Mims stating that "constitutional principles dictate the least possible involvement of the state in church matters."
Thomas Moncure Jr., senior counsel to the Attorney General wrote in the letter that, "As presently in effect [code section] 57-9 has potential constitutional problems."
"Additionally [code section] 57-9, as currently written, may force the courts to determine if the denomination a congregation seeks to join is actually a branch of the original denomination or a new denomination," he continued. "While adjudicating the property interests of any unincorporated association -- including a church -- involves an examination of its internal workings, a court decision over what is or is not a branch of an original denomination necessarily entangles government and religion. Constitutional principles dictate the least possible involvement of the state in church matters."
Mims is now deputy Attorney General, but in 2005, as a senator, he introduced a bill that would have changed Section 57-9 and "explicitly allowed congregants leaving national denominations to keep church properties," according to the diocese's filing.
A recent news report has noted that Mims was at one time a member of the Church of the Holy Spirit in Ashburn, Virginia, where a majority of the members voted two years ago to leave the Diocese of Virginia.
All of the documents in the case are available here. Click on the "Property Dispute" and scroll to the bottom for the January 17 filings.
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