Virginia Anglicans who split from the Episcopal Church last year are accusing their former diocese of “intimidation,” after the diocese moved to specifically name dozens of its former congregants in a land lawsuit.
A hearing is set today in Fairfax County Circuit Court to resolve whether about 75 now anonymous defendants — all vestry members or trustees of eight dissident churches — can be named in the suit.
The Episcopal Diocese of Virginia is suing to reclaim the properties after one of the most high-profile rifts within the Christian Church in modern American history. The conservative congregations left the Episcopal Church in December after a long-standing feud over the interpretation of scripture, a fight intensified by the ordination of a gay bishop four years ago in New England.
“It’s just harassment of defendants, that’s all it is,” Jim Oakes, vice chair of the Anglican District of Virginia, the umbrella group for the churches, said of the most recent motion. “It’s frankly intimidating to soccer moms and people who aren’t used to encountering our legal system.”
Patrick Getlein, a spokesman for the diocese, calls the motion to name the congregates “a procedural matter.” When the lawsuit was first filed, the names of some of the vestry members were unknown. Hence, the diocese left them as “John Doe” and “Jane Roe.”
“Members of the vestry are the elected leaders of the church,” he said. “They are the ones who are responsible for the actions of that church.”
In its motion seeking to use the real names, the diocese argues it is not adding new parties to the lawsuit, only naming members who “have known for some time that they were the intended defendants in these actions.”
Oakes, a vestry member of Truro Church in Fairfax City, is also named as a defendant.
Former congregations
The Episcopal Diocese of Virginia is seeking to name members of eight dissident congregations as partof a lawsuit to reclaim its former churches:
» Truro Church
» Church of the Apostles
» Church of the Epiphany
» St. Paul’s Church
» St. Margaret’s Church
» Church of the Word
» Church of Our Savior
» The Falls Church
