EPISCOPAL CHURCH MOVES TOWARD REPOSSESSION OF THE PROPERTIES
The Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina is asking the circuit court for a hearing on the repossession of the 29 parishes and the Camp.
Yesterday, 4 October 2019, the Diocese posted a news release about this. Find it here .
EDSC chancellor, Thomas Tisdale, sent a letter to circuit court Judge Edgar Dickson asking for a hearing on EDSC's May 2018 motion for implementation of the South Carolina Supreme Court decision of Aug. 2, 2017 and the appointment of a special master to oversee this.
Dickson has held two hearings in this case, one on the Anglican diocese's petititon for clarification of jurisdiction, asking the court to decide on the property ownership. The other was on the Betterments suit. He made no decision on either one.
The federal court ruling has changed the landscape of the circuit court motions (there are 5 before Dickson now). U.S. District Court Judge Richard Gergel ruled, on 19 September, that the Episcopal diocese is the heir of the historic diocese, and ordered the titles and emblems returned to the Church diocese. In his ruling, Gergel explicitly recognized the SCSC decision and said the orders therein were the essential points of the decision. Parsing of the words behind the orders was irrelevant.
The SCSC gave three orders on the last page of its Aug. 2 decision. Judge Dickson has already given implicit recognition of these orders as he implemented the first in his last hearing. That one recognized the independence of 7 parishes. The Church diocese is now asking Dickson to implement the other two: 28 parishes property of the Episcopal Church and its diocese, and Camp St. Christopher property of the Church diocese.
The Anglican diocese argued that the 28 parishes should not be returned to the Church because they did not accede to the Dennis Canon. According to the SCSC order, they did accede to the Dennis Canon. Four of the five justices of SCSC said the 28 acceded to the Canon. At any rate, the question of whether they did or did not accede to the Dennis Canon is moot. The SCSC explicitly ruled they did. This is the law of the land.
The Dennis Canon holds that a local church may own its own property by deed but it does so in trust for two beneficiaries, the Episcopal Church and the Church diocese. The parish owns the property under the condition it remains in the Episcopal Church. If the officers and people fo the parish leave the Episcopal Church, the beneficiaries of the trust automatically become the owners of the property.
In the Church view, the people of the 29 parishes forfeited their ownership of the parish properties at the schism. That meant, TEC and its diocese became the owners of the properties. Thus, the 29 never left the possession of the Episcopal Church. After the court officially recognizes this, as I understand it, the Episcopal Church will remove the clergy and vestries that are not loyal to the Episcopal Church and will install clergy and vestries loyal to the Episcopal Church. The 29 will function as parts of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina.
What Tisdale is now asking Judge Dickson is to enforce the SCSC decision. The Church side is in a much stronger position now to achieve this since Judge Gergel has all but ordered such.
Judge Dickson has before him the Remittitur of the SCSC decision. It is his task to implement this. He does not have the choice to alter or discard the SCSC decision. It is the law of the land. It is his job to see to it that the SCSC decision is carried out.
The Episcopal Church is much closer now to recovering the 29 parishes than it was a few weeks ago.
Next, we await Judge Dickson's response to Tisdale's letter of yesterday.
