The VLW Blog

Revisiting the issue after a Virginia Supreme Court remand, a Fairfax County judge says the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia can keep the church buildings sought by breakaway congregations. Circuit Judge Randy Bellows Tuesday ordered all church property involved in the protracted litigation be turned over to the diocese. A copy of Bellows’ 113-page opinion is [...]

[Read more →]

The Supreme Court of Virginia today reverses and remands the finding that breakaway Episcopal congregations in Northern Virginia can keep their church property against claims by the established church organization. The Supreme Court rules that a Civil War-era Virginia statute allowing dissident congregations to keep title to church property does not apply to the Episcopal [...]

[Read more →]

Fairfax Circuit Judge Randy Bellows today upheld the constitutionality of a Virginia statute that governs how property rights are determined in a church split, in a case that has pitted the mainline Episcopal Diocese of Virginia against 11 breakaway congregations. In an April 3 decision, Bellows said the division in the church was such that [...]

[Read more →]

Attorney General Bob McDonnell has filed papers for the state to intervene in the Episcopal Church case in Northern Virginia. The case, tried last fall, pits the diocese against 11 congregations that want to break away; millions of dollars in church property hangs in the balance. McDonnell said that since the constitutionality of a state [...]

[Read more →]

Yesterday in Fairfax, a trial expected to last two weeks got under way that could determine control of the property of 11 churches that voted to leave the Episcopal Diocese. Millions of dollars are at stake. At issue is an 1867 law, Virginia Code § 57-9, that governs when a congregation can realign its allegiance [...]

[Read more →]