Supreme Court has Anglicans on the edges of their pews

By Frank Stirk  |  BC Correspondent

VANCOUVER, BC—The legal issues may be complex, but Anglicans in the four Lower Mainland parishes that voted last year to leave the Anglican Church of Canada are waiting for an answer to a simple yet fateful question: will they be allowed to keep worshiping in their buildings?

The hearing before B.C. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Kelleher began in Vancouver on May 25. It could last up to three weeks, and a ruling is not expected before the end of the year.

The parishes—St. John's Shaughnessy, Good Shepherd and St. Matthias and St. Luke in Vancouver along with St. Matthew's in Abbotsford—left the Diocese of New Westminster in 2002 after its synod voted to approve a blessing for committed same-sex couples. In early 2008, the four parishes voted overwhelmingly to join the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC).

Citing canon or Church law, the diocese responded by ordering clergy in three of the parishes to vacate their pastorates saying the buildings and properties they worshipped in belonged to the ACC. The clergy in turn sued the diocese on grounds that Bishop Michael Ingham no longer had any authority over them or their parishes.

The diocese's claims ownership of the breakaway parishes' assets. People can choose to leave the Anglican Church of Canada, but parishes cannot, the diocese maintains.

Diocesan chancellor or chief legal officer George Cadman says this means that "those who choose to leave dioceses or parishes can't take the properties with them."

Cadman notes it is a position that dioceses in Victoria and Ontario have argued successfully in similar court battles last year involving dissenting Anglican parishes.

But ANiC executive director Cheryl Chang counters that this case presents "a completely different set of facts."

"In the Victoria case," she says, "that was an unincorporated parish. The buildings were in the name of the diocese. Here we have parish corporations which hold title to the property."

Of the four parishes, St. John's Shaughnessy has by far the most at stake in this court battle. It is the largest Anglican parish in Canada—and one of the wealthiest. In a statement of claim filed in September, it valued its properties at over $10 million.

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