Judge says diocesan property belongs to the Episcopal Church's Diocese of Pittsburgh

Episcopal Life Online-

A judge ruled October 6 that the organization headed by former Bishop Robert Duncan that left the Episcopal Church's Diocese of Pittsburgh in 2008 cannot continue to hold any diocesan assets.

On October 4, 2008 a majority of the delegates to the diocese's 143rd annual convention voted to approve a resolution by which the diocese purported to leave the Episcopal Church. The leaders of the diocese who departed have said that they remain in charge of an entity they call the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh (Anglican) that is now part of the Argentina-based Anglican Province of the Southern Cone. And they say that in that capacity they control all the assets that were held by the diocese when they left.

The court, however, ruled that all diocesan assets must be held by the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh that is recognized by the Episcopal Church.

The suit arose out of a 2003 complaint by Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh after a special diocesan convention passed a resolution stating that all property in the diocese, which under Episcopal Church canons is held in trust by the diocese for the entire church, instead belonged to individual congregations or the diocese itself. The proceedings in the suit led to an October 2005 stipulated court order in which Duncan and the other then-leaders of the diocese agreed that the diocese would continue to hold or administer property "regardless of whether some or even a majority of the parishes in the Diocese might decide not to remain in the Episcopal Church of the United States of America."

That order defined "diocese" as the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America.

In its October 6 opinion Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas Judge Joseph M. James (pictured) explained that "regardless of what name the defendants now call themselves, they are not the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America." He ruled that the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh "did not cease to exist" because it was created by the Episcopal Church and the church now recognizes that those Episcopalians who did not follow Duncan now make up the Episcopal Church's continuing diocese.

The rest is here-

http://www.episcopal-life.org/81803_115375_ENG_HTM.htm