Buoyed by a brief in support of their position by Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, the Falls Church Anglican defectors from the Falls Church Episcopal church filed an appeal with the Virginia Supreme Court last Friday, asking that court to overturn the decision of Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge Randy I. Bellows in the lawsuits filed by The Episcopal Church and the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia.
Judge Bellows ordered the Anglicans to transfer to the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia all of the church’s real property, approximately $2,800,000 in funds contributed by its members prior to 2007, and most of its personal property (bibles, hymnals, furniture, etc.). Cuccinelli also filed a brief in support of the church’s request for review of the trial court’s treatment of funds contributed by donors. The church’s petition argues that Bellows failed to follow the Virginia Supreme Court’s 2010 directive to resolve this church property dispute by “application of neutral principles of law” and instead justified transferring the church’s property based primarily on the denomination’s internal canons.
