Sts. Peter and Paul Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of Miami, Florida, Inc. v. Diocese of the South, Orthodox Church in America

• Court: District Court of Appeal of Florida
• Decided: May 20, 2026
• Docket: 3D2025-0401
• Status: Published

Opinion

Third District Court of Appeal State of Florida

Opinion filed May 20, 2026. Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing. ________________

No. 3D25-0401 Lower Tribunal No. 23-25938-CA-01 ________________

Sts. Peter and Paul Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of Miami, Florida, Inc., Appellant,

vs.

Diocese of the South, Orthodox Church in America, et al., Appellees.

An Appeal from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Lisa S. Walsh, Judge.

Wasson & Associates, Chartered, and Roy D. Wasson; The Ferraro Law Firm, and Leslie B. Rothenberg, for appellant.

K&L Gates LLP, and Jonathan B. Morton, for appellees.

Hevia Hechtman Baldwin Trial Lawyers, and Brandon Hechtman; H. Scott Fingerhut, P.A., and H. Scott Fingerhut, for Russian Orthodox Church in America, as amicus curiae,

Before FERNANDEZ, LOGUE and BOKOR, JJ.

PER CURIAM. Affirmed. Volusia County v. Aberdeen at Ormond Beach, L.P., 760 So.

2d 126,130 (Fla. 2000) (providing that the standard of review of a final

summary judgment is de novo); Kedroff v. St. Nicholas Cathedral of Russian

Orthodox Church in N. Am., 344 U.S. 94, 120-21 (1952) (“Even in those

cases when the property right follows as an incident from decisions of the

church custom or law on ecclesiastical issues, the church rule controls. This

under our Constitution necessarily follows in order that there may be free

exercise of religion.” (Emphasis added)); Serbian E. Orthodox Diocese for

U. S. of Am. & Canada v. Milivojevich, 426 U.S. 696, 709 (1976) (“For where

resolution of the disputes cannot be made without extensive inquiry by civil

courts into religious law and polity, the First and Fourteenth Amendments

mandate that civil courts shall not disturb the decisions of the highest

ecclesiastical tribunal within a church of hierarchical polity, but must accept

such decisions as binding on them, in their application to the religious issues

of doctrine or polity before them.”); New Jerusalem Church of God, Inc. v.

Sneads Cmty. Church, Inc., 147 So. 3d 25, 30 (Fla. 1st DCA 2013) (“[The

local church] clearly assented to [the parent church’s] membership as well.

When [the local church], voluntarily affiliated with [the parent church], it was

subject to all the provisions in the Book and could not pick and choose which

religious tenets to adopt.[ ] By choosing to unite under [the parent church],

2 [the local church] consented to [the parent church’s] governance and,

specifically in this case, structure of property ownership.” (Emphasis

added)); Serbian E. Orthodox Diocese, 426 U.S. at 717 (“[T]here [is no]

dispute that questions of church discipline and the composition of the church

hierarchy are at the core of ecclesiastical concern . . . .”); Mills v. Baldwin,

362 So. 2d 2, 7 (Fla. 1978), reinstated, 377 So. 2d 971 (Fla. 1979) (“[T]he

issue in a case such as this is not who owns the property. The [local church]

owns the property. The true issue is who represents the [local church]? The

authorities from Watson v. Jones forward clearly respond that [members

loyal to the parent church] represent [the local church] because of the

structure and government of the [parent church].” (Emphasis added));

Mammon v. SCI Funeral Servs. of Fla. Inc., 193 So. 3d 980, 986 (Fla. 4th

DCA 2016) (“However, unlike a medical malpractice, accounting, or

construction case, the First Amendment's ecclesiastical abstention doctrine

precludes the court from relying upon experts to make such a determination

in this case.”); Jones v. Wolf, 443 U.S. 595, 602 (1979) (“[A] State may adopt

any one of various approaches for settling church property disputes so long

as it involves no consideration of doctrinal matters, whether the ritual and

liturgy of worship or the tenets of faith.”); New Jerusalem, 147 So. 3d at 29

(“The history of Mills makes it ‘apparent that Florida has made the decision

3 to apply the deference to church authority approach when resolving church

property disputes.’” (quoting Townsend v. Teagle, 467 So. 2d 772, 774 (Fla.

1st DCA 1985))); Bethel AME Church of Newberry, Fla. v. Domingo, 654 So.

2d 233, 234 (Fla. 1st DCA 1995) (“The principle of church structure which

governs church property disputes . . . requires that church property remain

with the parent church where, as here, the church is hierarchical in structure.”

(internal citations omitted)); Jones, 443 U.S. at 602 (“[T]he First Amendment

prohibits civil courts from resolving church property disputes on the basis of

religious doctrine and practice. [T]he Amendment requires that civil courts

defer to the resolution of issues of religious doctrine or polity by the highest

court of a hierarchical church organization.” (internal citations omitted)

(emphasis added)); St. John's Presbytery v. Cent. Presbyterian Church of

St. Petersburg, 102 So. 2d 714, 718 (Fla. 1958) (“When the church is

representative, republican or episcopal in government, the authorities

uniformly hold that the church property whether held by an express or an

implied trust cannot be diverted from the parent church by those who

withdraw from it and form a separate denomination. It matters not whether

those who withdraw from the mother church constitute a majority or a

minority faction, the church property remains with the mother church. . . . [I]n

churches bound together by associated ecclesiastical government when the

4 local church is obedient to a larger or more important religious organization

and is governed by it, such as the Presbyterian, Catholic, Episcopal,

Methodist and Lutheran, I have found no exception to this rule. They could

not function under any other rule.”).