Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Anglicans fight over parish properties

http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/306861

[The Toronto Star] 26 Feb 2008--Breakaway Anglicans and the national church sit down today in a last-ditch effort to resolve a potentially ugly dispute over who gets the keys to three local churches.

The three congregations, in Oakville, Lowville and St. Catharines, all voted recently to split from the Anglican Church of Canada, which they see as having become too liberal. If no agreement is reached at the closed-door session between the churches and the Diocese of Niagara, the matter goes to court Friday.

"It's not in anybody's interest for this to end up in court," said Cheryl Chang, lawyer for the breakaway churches.

Chang will argue today the disputed properties were built to uphold a historic Anglican tradition that the church itself no longer follows.

"When people gave money to build the churches, they gave it because the believed in the Anglican Church," Chang said.

"They believed in the faith that the Anglican Church was teaching and that it is bound to."

The Anglican Church of Canada is among the most liberal in the worldwide communion, which Chang called "a breach of trust" with past generations.

"Those people died in a church that had a different faith," she said

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