Lowe v. First Presbyterian Church

308 N.E.2d 801, 56 Ill. 2d 404

• Court: Illinois Supreme Court
• Decided: March 28, 1974
• Docket: 45679
• Status: Published

Opinions

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE UNDERWOOD

delivered the opinion of the court:

Plaintiffs, the Presbytery of Chicago of the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (hereafter the Presbytery and United Presbyterian Church, respectively) and its Committee on Business Affairs, Budget and Building Counsel, filed suit for a mandatory injunction against defendants, the First Presbyterian Church of Forest Park and six individuals as trustees of the church, seeking to compel the conveyance of that church’s real and personal property to the Church Extension Board of the Presbytery. The Cook County circuit court denied defendants’ motions for dismissal of the complaint and for summary judgment, and awarded plaintiffs judgment on the pleadings. The First District Appellate Court reversed (Lowe v. First Presbyterian Church, 9 Ill. App. 3d 415), and we allowed plaintiffs’ petition for leave to appeal.

Plaintiffs allege that on October 8, 1968, the Presbytery adopted a resolution dissolving the congregation of the First Presbyterian Church of Forest Park as of October 31, 1968, and directed that the assets of the church be liquidated by the plaintiff committee. Defendant trustees subsequently refused to convey the real property or turn over the personal property of the church, and this suit followed.

The essence of this controversy is found in the allegations that the defendant church is a religious corporation (General Not For Profit Corporation Act, Ill. Rev. Stat. 1971, ch. 32, par. 163a et seq.) holding title to the real estate in controversy for the use and benefit of its congregation; and that the defendants constitute a member church of the Presbytery subject to its control and supervision. Plaintiffs assert that the defendant church is subordinate to the Presbytery and that under the provisions of chapter XXXII of the Form of Government of the United Presbyterian Church defendants are required to convey the property in accordance with the directions of the Presbytery. Chapter XXXII provides:

“Whenever hereafter a particular church is formally dissolved by the presbytery, or has become extinct by reason of the dispersal of its members, the abandonment of its work, or other cause, such property as it may have, both real and personal, shall be held, used and applied for such uses, purposes, and trusts as the presbytery may direct, limit, and appoint, or such property may be sold or disposed of as the presbytery may direct, in conformity with the Constitution of the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.” Section 62.11.

“Whether by civil law the trustees of a particular church hold title to its property or are the officers of a corporation which holds title thereto, they shall deal with such property only as they may be authorized or directed by the session, and their authority in respect to the selling, mortgaging, and leasing of real property shall be subject also to any rights reserved to the congregation by civil law or the bylaws of the particular church and to the permission of presbytery as herein provided.” Section 62.08.

Plaintiffs further allege that the defendant church in all of its operations has always recognized and honored the authority of the Presbytery until directed by the Presbytery to transfer its property. Defendants, in their amended answer, state that the Church Extension Board had previously conveyed and quitclaimed the property in question to them, and that plaintiffs are without authority to order defendants to reconvey the property to the Church Extension Board. Defendants deny that their church was ever subject to the control or supervision of the Presbytery, and while they do not deny a resolution was adopted by the Presbytery dissolving the defendant church, they assert that the resolution was an assumption of authority not existing in the organization of the Presbytery. They also allege that subsequent to the incorporation of the defendant church as a religious corporation, it paid out over $30,000 in rebuilding, remodeling and renovating the church building and premises, and that this work was paid for with the proceeds of a mortgage loan of $25,000 and the remainder from the defendant church’s treasury. They also state that prior to incorporation the members provided all the funds needed for the maintenance and operation of the church building. Defendants further allege that the members of the defendant church unanimously desire to continue to hold regular church services.

Defendants’ theory is that the conveyance by quitclaim deed to the defendant church was an outright transfer and, in the absence of an express declaration of trust, the property should not be subject to the control of the Presbytery. The appellate court agreed and reversed the judgment of the trial court, relying basically on Calkins v. Cheney (1879), 92 Ill. 463. Calkins involved a contract by a parish of the Protestant Episcopal Church to purchase a lot upon which to erect a church and parsonage. Money for the purchase and the project was obtained by donations from members of the parish and from rental or sale of pews in the proposed church building. The congregation intended to eliminate control of the property by the Bishop and retain sole control and management thereof. To that end it was arranged to convey the property to the “Trustees of Christ Church” with no express declaration of trust in the deed or any other document. Minority members of the congregation in Calkins filed suit to enjoin a rector deposed by the Protestant Episcopal Church from serving as rector in the Christ Church and to enjoin the congregation from compensating him, allowing him to officiate at services, or reside in the parsonage. In deciding the case the court looked to the deed conveying the property to the trustees of Christ Church. That deed contained no express declaration of trust for the Protestant Episcopal Church in general, nor was there a separate written declaration of trust by the trustees. The court also noted the clear efforts of the congregation and trustees to avoid interference by the Bishop. On these facts the court held that the property belonged outright to the congregation of Christ Church, was not held in trust for the benefit of the parent church, and was not subject to the control of any ecclesiastical judicatory.

Defendants in this suit and the appellate court, in the absence of an express declaration of trust for the benefit of the Presbytery or general church, have relied on Calkins. It is not disputed that legal title to the property here is in the trustees of the church corporation by virtue of the quitclaim deed. Therefore, assert defendants, plaintiffs have no right to order transfer of the property, since, they urge, the property is subject only to control by the local church. Defendants also cite Dubs v. Egli (1897), 167 Ill. 514; Illinois Classis of the Reformed Church v. Holben (1919), 286 Ill. 473, and Glader v. Schwinge (1929), 336 Ill. 551, as either following Calkins or citing it with approval.

While this approach has surface appeal, we do not believe the holding in Calkins is dispositive here. Resolution of the issue here requires us to do more than simply examine the deed conveying the property. In doing so, however, it is necessary to recognize that the freedom of religion guaranteed by both Federal and State constitutions limits the scope of action by a civil court in the settlement of disputes over church property. Courts have, with varying degrees of success, sought, in resolving such controversies, to formulate principles which preserve and protect the legitimate interest of the State without undesirable or impermissible interference in the internal operation of those rules which churches have chosen as their own form of government.

The more recent view of the law relating to church property disputes attaches substantial significance to the internal structure or polity of the congregation and the parent church. (Watson v. Jones, 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 679, 726-727, 20 L. Ed. 666, 676; Kedroff v. St. Nicholas Cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Church in North America, 334 U.S. 94, 116, 97 L. Ed. 120, 136, 73 S. Ct. 143; First Presbyterian Church v. First Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 245 Ill. 74, 95.) A major factor in resolving questions of ownership and control of church property resulting from disputes between local and national church organizations is the structure of the parent church body and its relationship to the local church. Watson; Kedroff; Presbyterian Church in the United States v. Mary Elizabeth Blue Hull Memorial Presbyterian Church, 393 U.S. 440, 21 L. Ed. 2d 658, 89 S. Ct. 601; First Presbyterian Church v. First Cumberland Presbyterian Church.

Watson is a century-old case which begins the modern view of the law on church property disputes. A Presbyterian congregation in Louisville, Kentucky, divided into two factions as the result of differing opinions regarding an oath stating opposition to slavery. Each faction claimed the local church building. The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church decided that the majority, which favored the oath, was the legitimate successor to the congregation and entitled to use the property. The Supreme Court noted that the local congregation was a member of the national Presbyterian Church and subject to its control and system of ecclesiastical government. Therefore, since the General Assembly had decided the question, the court was bound by that decision. In classifying the questions concerning rights to property held by ecclesiastical bodies into three general categories, the court observed:

“1. The first of these is when the property which is the subject of controversy has been, by the deed or will of the donor, or other instrument by which the property is held, by the express terms of the instrument devoted to the teaching, support or spread of some specific form of religious doctrine or belief.

2. The second is when the property is held by a religious congregation which, by the nature of its organization, is strictly independent of other ecclesiastical associations, and so far as church government is concerned, owes no fealty or obligation to any higher authority.

3. The third is where the religious congregation or ecclesiastical body holding the property is but a subordinate member of some general church organization in which there are superior ecclesiastical tribunals with a general and ultimate power of control more or less complete in some supreme judicatory over the whole membership of that general organization.” 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 679, 722-723, 20 L. Ed. 666, 674.

A note, Judicial Intervention in Disputes Over the Use of Church Property, 75 Harv. L. Rev. 1142, 1143 (1962), also discusses the type of church organizations, indicating the three basic forms of internal church structure to be congregational, presbyterial and episcopal. In the congregational form the local congregation is autonomous, while in the presbyterial and episcopal form the structure is hierarchical.

The Watson opinion dealt with the third category, where the congregation was a subordinate member of a superior general church organization. The court concluded that in this class of case, “whenever the questions of discipline or of faith, or ecclesiastical rule, custom or law have been decided by the highest of these church judicatories to which the matter has been carried, the legal tribunals must accept such decisions as final, and as binding on them, in their application to the case before them.” 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 679, 727, 20 L. Ed. 666, 676.

In a more recent decision by the Supreme Court in a church property dispute, Presbyterian Church v. Mary Elizabeth Blue Hull Memorial Presbyterian Church, 393 U.S. 440, 21 L. Ed. 2d 658, 89 S. Ct. 601, the court prohibited a civil court from awarding church property on the basis of the interpretation and significance which the civil court accorded various aspects of church doctrine. The Georgia courts had sustained a theory that implied a trust of local church property for the benefit of the general church so long as the general church adhered to the tenets of faith existing at the time of affiliation by the local churches. Whether the general church had departed from those tenets was determined by the Georgia courts. This approach allowed the civil court to determine ecclesiastical questions in the process of resolving property disputes, and was held to be in direct conflict with the holding of Watson which had been elevated to constitutional stature in Kedroff v. St. Nicholas Cathedral of Russian Orthodox Church In North America, 344 U.S. 94, 97 L. Ed. 120, 73 S. Ct. 143.

In Kedroff the court found unconstitutional a New York statute which approved the transfer of control of St. Nicholas Cathedral from the central governing authority of the Russian Orthodox Church to the independent Russian Church of America. The court there held that the right to use the cathedral and the right to appoint the ruling hierarch of the archdiocese of North America were matters of ecclesiastical government with which neither a secular statute nor a civil court could interfere.

It is apparent that resolution of the controversy here requires a detailed examination of the governmental structure of the United Presbyterian Church and its relationship to the First Presbyterian Church of Forest Park.

The United Presbyterian Church is one of two substantial Presbyterian church bodies in this country. (Annot., 52 A.L.R.3d 324, 418 n.20, citing G. Weigel, Churches in North America (Schocken Books 1965, p. 34).) There are other smaller Presbyterian church bodies, all of similar governmental structure. That structure consists of a series of ascending bodies called Judicatories. At the lowest level is the Session composed of trustees, deacons and other members of the local congregation. At the secondary level is a Presbytery made up of many local Presbyterian churches such as the Presbytery of Chicago, one of the plaintiffs here. At the third level is a Synod comprised of a number of Presbyteries, and the supreme governing body is the General Assembly, the actions of which are controlling at all lower levels. Plaintiffs’ allegation that this is the structure of the United Presbyterian Church is not contested, and the nature of the Presbyterian church governmental structure has been demonstrated in a series of cases collected in the annotation in 52 A.L.R.3d 324, at 417-423. It is clear that the United Presbyterian Church is hierarchical in governmental form in that each judicatory has control of those below it. The significance here of this structure is that each member Presbyterian church is subject to the rules and directions of its Presbytery, Synod and Assembly.

The remaining question is whether the First Presbyterian Church of Forest Park is a member of the general church and therefore a part of that hierarchical structure. Plaintiffs have alleged certain events in the history of the defendant church as evidencing its affiliation with, and subordination to, the Presbytery. In their answer to plaintiffs’ motion for judgment on the pleadings, defendants do not deny that these specific events occurred, but rather, deny that their occurrence indicates jurisdiction and control in the Presbytery. A recital of those events is illuminating as to the nature of the relationship which has existed between the defendant church and the Presbytery and general church.

In accordance with chapter X, section 7 of the Form of Government of the United Presbyterian Church giving a Presbytery the power to form or receive new congregations, the Presbytery of Chicago in 1913 authorized the organization of the Pioneer Presbyterian Church of Forest Park. A pastor was approved by the Presbytery and installed pursuant to chapter XV, section 1 of the Form of Government. The name was later changed with the approval and consent of the Presbytery to the First Presbyterian Church of Forest Park. The church was incorporated as a not-for-profit religious corporation in compliance with a mandatory requirement of the Form of Government (ch. XXVII, sec. 3) designed to facilitate the activities of the local churches in receiving, holding and transferring property. We believe that incorporation of the local church can hardly be viewed as releasing that church from general church control when such incorporation is required by the general church for the reasons above stated.

In 1958 the Church Extension Board of the Presbytery of Chicago conveyed the property in question to the defendant church by quitclaim deed for a stated consideration of one dollar. One year later the Presbytery authorized the defendant church to mortgage the property. The Presbytery specified that the proceeds from the mortgage be used for remodeling, and specified the amount, term and rate of interest. The Presbytery also approved the cost of the remodeling and required that $15,000 be secured in pledges before the program was commenced. This was done pursuant to chapter XXVII, section 10a of the Form of Government, which provides that a church “shall not sell or mortgage any of its real property without written permission of the Presbytery.”

The defendant church has submitted its Session minutes for review by the Presbytery on an annual basis. The Presbytery has terminated the relationship of a pastor to the defendant church, approved the retirement of a pastor and appointed a moderator to serve while the church was without an active pastor. Similarly, the Presbytery approved purchase of an organ at a specified price by the local church. In short, it seems to us clear that since the original formation of the Pioneer Presbyterian Church some 60 years ago defendants have been an integral party of the United Presbyterian Church. Their membership implies consent to its form of government (Watson; Mary Elizabeth Blue Hull), and their conduct during that period acknowledges its supremacy. Under that form of government, as earlier indicated, the Presbytery is authorized to direct the disposition of a local church’s property upon dissolution of that church. There are no allegations in the pleadings before us which justify interference by a civil court. See Gonzales v. Roman Catholic Archbishop of Manila, 280 U.S. 1, 74 L. Ed. 131, 50 S. Ct. 5.

Our conclusion here is not new to Illinois church law. (First Presbyterian Church v. First Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 245 Ill. 74.) The cited case involved the effect on local church property of the reunion of two separate national organizations of the Presbyterian Church. Title to a local church building and parsonage was dependent upon the validity of the merger. The general assemblies of the two churches had already decided the question, a decision this court held binding upon it: “this court must follow the determination of that ecclesiastical court in the determination of the property rights here involved.” (245 Ill. 74, 120.) In so deciding the court cited Watson v. Jones, 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 679, 20 L. Ed. 666, and remarked:

“*** where, as here, the religious corporation or other body holding title to church property is but a subordinate member of some general church organization in which there is a superior ecclesiastical tribunal, with general jurisdiction of review and control over the inferior tribunals of the church and its members, the judgment of such tribunal is, within its legitimate sphere, binding and conclusive upon the civil courts, and that such judgment must be followed by the civil courts in the determination of such property rights as the civil courts may be called upon to adjudicate.” 245 Ill. 74, at 95.

In our opinion the controlling principle to be garnered from the holdings of the cited United States Supreme Court cases and from this court’s own holding in First Presbyterian Church v. First Cumberland Presbyterian Church is that where a local church is but a subordinate member of a superior general church organization, and has directly or impliedly consented to its form of government, that church is ordinarily bound by the decisions of the ecclesiastical judicatories. In these circumstances, the civil courts cannot, in the process of resolving property disputes between the local and the general church, independently determine questions properly within the sphere of ecclesiastical bodies.

Accordingly, the decision of the appellate court is reversed, and the judgment of the circuit court of Cook County is affirmed.

Appellate court reversed; circuit court affirmed.