The Virginia Supreme Court yesterday heard arguments in the dispute pitting the Episcopal Church against several of its congregations, which chose to split and form the Anglican District of Virginia. At issue is a 143-year-old law allowing a congregation's majority to choose its affiliation within a denomination. The Episcopal Church, appealing a ruling from a lower court, argued as the BJC did in a brief that the law unconstitutionally discriminates against certain types of religions, and improperly intervenes in religious matters.
It sounds like the questions yesterday got right into the heart of the matter:
Several questions from the justices yesterday focused on … whether the departing congregations were a branch of the Episcopal Church.
"They joined another church, not a branch of the Episcopal Church," Heather H. Anderson, representing the Episcopal Church, told the justices.
Johnson, representing the breakaway churches, countered that they were a branch of the Episcopal Church in a historical sense and that they branched off from the Episcopal Church. "Both sides believe they are faithful Episcopalians," he added.
George A. Somerville, representing the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, said the Virginia law is not neutral because it discriminates against churches run by hierarchies, or mixed hierarchies as with the Episcopal Church, as opposed to those run strictly at the congregation level.
