Episcopal diocese settles dispute with nine parishes

The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh and nine breakaway Anglican parishes have settled a nearly decade-old legal dispute that will enable the congregations to continue using their properties while paying annual fees to the diocese, which will retain a limited say in the future of the properties.

The agreement, announced Wednesday, resulted from intensive mediation that began last fall, resolving most of the remaining legal issues that had festered ever since Pittsburgh became the epicenter of a continent-wide denominational schism in 2008.

That year, a majority of parishes left the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh — opposing liberal trends in the Episcopal Church on homosexuality and theology. They incorporated a diocese of the same name under the newly formed conservative Anglican Church in North America, an Ambridge-based denomination.

All along, the nine parishes continued to worship and conduct other activities in their buildings even amid the dispute, which never reached court but which clouded the property titles.

The agreement means the parishes can all stay put.

The nine include three in Allegheny County — Church of the

Ascension in Oakland, ChristChurch in Fox Chapel and St. Stephen’s in Sewickley — and six in surrounding counties. Those are St. Peter’s Anglican Church in Butler; St. Mary’s in Charleroi; Christ’s Church in Greensburg; St. Alban’s in Murrysville; St. Peter’s in Uniontown; and Trinity in Washington.

The agreement does not declare a winner in each side’s claims to control the properties — the parishes as title holders or the diocese as legal beneficiary.

Instead, the document weaves together legal and spiritual language. Each side pledges, “as believers in Christ and his teachings on forgiveness, to forgive any wrongs and failures of charity” and to seek “blessing” on each others’ ministries.

Episcopal Bishop Dorsey McConnell said in a letter: “While acknowledging our deep differences, both sides have been concerned with seeking the highest degree of relationship possible, in the hope of reducing the scandal to the gospel posed by the split.”

And Anglican Bishop James Hobby called the settlement “quite remarkable, given the litigious culture in which we live. Clearly, hard work and difficult conversations were part of the negotiations. But, biblical principles and a shared commitment to follow Christ provided a healthy context.”

Both bishops brought fresh eyes to the Pittsburgh dispute, arriving from outof-state posts after the bitterest years of the split. Under the agreement: Each of the nine parishes can keep using its property.

Each will pay an annual fee of 3.25 percent of parish operating revenues to the Episcopal diocese for the next 20 years and 1.75 percent annually after that.

Parishes can’t do any sales or other transactions involving the properties without the consent of the Episcopal diocese, which in turn pledges “to not withhold its consent unreasonably.”

Parishes can continue their routine use of endowment funds, with the Episcopal diocese retaining a say in any new use of principal, such as for capital projects.

“So many of us are glad to see this chapter finding its way into the rearview mirror,” said the Rev. Canon Jonathan Millard, rector of Church of the Ascension and part of the negotiating team.

“We’ve continued to be about our mission, our ministry. We have continued to grow” at Ascension, he said. “But what has hung over us has been the inability to move forward on some major deferred projects on our building.” Now the parish can move forward on needed repairs, including to its historic stone tower.

Rev. Millard said the peaceful mediation “could be a model for other places around the country” experiencing similar denominational splits.

Legal battles had begun even before the October 2008 split, and courts ultimately ruled that property titled to the diocese itself stayed in Episcopal hands. But disputes over property titled to individual parishes had varied results, sometimes with settlement, other times with Anglicans walking away from properties and starting afresh in a new space.

The settlement doesn’t entirely close the legal books, with three other parish properties still in dispute.

The Episcopal diocese has 36 active congregations in southwestern Pennsylvania. The Anglican diocese, which covers a broader area of Pennsylvania and oversees several out-of-state parishes, has close to 60 congregations, some formed after the split.

Peter Smith: petersmith@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1416; Twitter @PG_PeterSmith.