Fairfax, VA: Former Episcopal leaders reminded of vows

By Julia Duin
November 15, 2007

Conservative church leaders who left the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia after the consecration of a homosexual bishop took the stand yesterday to assert their claim on valuable properties that they say belongs to local congregations — not the national church or the diocese — during court proceedings in the largest property battle in Episcopal Church history.

Lawyers for the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Virginia questioned several leaders of 11 breakaway churches in trying to establish that Bishop Martyn Minns and Falls Church rector the Rev. John Yates, among others, violated priestly vows to be loyal to the Episcopal Church. Those vows were violated, the lawyers said, when the group led several thousand people out of the Virginia Diocese last December in protest over the 2003 consecration of Bishop V. Gene Robinson in New Hampshire.

As a result of the Robinson consecration, conservative parishioners and clergy alike begin to flee the church, Mr. Yates said.

"Some rectors were talking about the possibility of leaving the Episcopal Church," he said, "while around the country, other groups of churches had already taken steps to leave."

The lawsuit, being heard in Fairfax Circuit Court, involves millions of dollars in property still occupied by the 11 churches. The diocese and the national church are demanding they vacate their real estate, which includes some of Northern Virginia"s most historic properties.

The disaffected churches say an 1867 Virginia "division statute" gives them the legal standing to keep the property. The case, which will continue for another week, hinges on whether a "division" has occurred in the diocese.

Bishop Minns, the former rector of the historic Truro Church in Fairfax City until he became the founding bishop of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, was reminded by a diocesan attorney of the vows that he made when he began his three-decade career as an Episcopal priest.

"Didn"t you promise to 'conform to the doctrine, worship and discipline of the Episcopal Church"?" asked lawyer Brad Davenport of the Richmond firm Troutman Sanders.

Bishop Minns said yes but that he had ceased being an Episcopal priest when he was consecrated a bishop Aug. 20, 2006, by the Anglican Church of Nigeria.

Attorneys for the church leaders in Northern Virginia portrayed them as loyal Episcopalians who tried for years to work out their theological differences with the more liberal Episcopal Church and the diocese before giving up in the fall of 2006.

Over objections from attorneys for the diocese, the court allowed a Sept. 28, 2006, document drawn up by a six-person committee comprising three conservatives, including Mr. Yates, and three liberals appointed by the bishop.

The diocese said the document, a letter to Virginia Bishop Peter J. Lee, was "replete with religious doctrine and theology that shouldn"t be admitted in a property dispute." The letter told how the committee had worked out a protocol for "departing members including concomitant issues concerning real and personal property."

Mr. Yates said the committee met with Bishop Lee that same day in Fredericksburg and presented him the letter.

"He received the report with resignation," recalled Mr. Yates. "He said, 'This is a way forward, and I'll present this to the diocese." "

But Mr. Yates said negotiations between the diocese and the churches eventually broke down.

"This was a total departure from our meetings of the past year," he said. "It was totally unexpected."

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