From ENS-
An Ohio judge has ruled that five congregations in which the majority of members and clergy left the Episcopal Church and then sought to retain church property are not entitled to keep that property.
The case began in March 2008 when the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Ohio filed suit seeking a ruling on the efforts to transfer property to other Anglican Communion dioceses in South America and Africa.
Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Deena Calabrese said in the ruling April 15 that the "Dennis Canon" (Canon 1.7.4) (passed by the General Convention in 1979 to state that a parish holds its property in trust for the diocese and the Episcopal Church) applied in the case.
The judge said that two of the congregations had not challenged the Dennis Canon for more than 20 years after its enactment. The other three, Calabrese said, applied to the diocese for admission as parishes after its enactment and pledged at the time to be bound by the canon.
The five congregations are the Parish of the Church of the Transfiguration, Cleveland; St. Barnabas' Protestant Episcopal Church, Bay Village; the Episcopal Church of the Holy Spirit, Akron; St. Anne's in the Fields Episcopal Church, Madison; and St. Luke's Episcopal Church, Akron.
"In litigation of this sort nobody wins," Ohio Bishop Mark Hollingsworth said in a statement after the ruling.
"Of the many costs, the distractions from daily attention to the ministry of Christ may be the greatest," he said. "I am very grateful that the people of the diocese have resisted that distraction and kept focused on the worthy work that God gives us to do."
More here-
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/80263_128127_ENG_HTM.htm
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