Finley v. Brent

• Decision Date: 20 November 1890
• Citation: 12 S.E. 228,87 Va. 103
• Parties: Finley et al. v. Brent et al.
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court

87 Va. 103

12 S.E. 228

Finley et al.

v.Brent et al.

Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia.

Nov. 20, 1890.

Religious Societies—Division of Church— Rights in Property.

1. Where property is left in trust for the sole and exclusive benefit of the religious congregation of regular orthodox Methodist Protestants of a certain place, the majority of such congregation cannot, by leaving such church and joining the Methodist Episcopal Church, take such property with them for the use of the latter church.

2. Act Va. 1867, pp. 649, 650, providing that in case of division in a religious congregation the determination of the majority as to what branch such congregation shall thereafter belong shall conclude questions as to property held in trust for the congregation, is unconstitutional, as impairing the obligation of a contract, when applied to property theretofore left in trust for a particular congregation.

R. L. T. Beale and J. B. Sener, for appellants.

W. W. Walker, for appellees.

Lacy, J. This is an appeal from a decree of the circuit court of Northumberland county rendered on the 29th day of June, 1888. The bill was filed by the appellants to construe a deed, made by one William Harding on the 1st day of October, 1860, and to enforce the same for their benefit. This deed was a grant in trustto trustees, by the said William Harding and wife, of a lot or parcel of land described therein, "on which the new Methodist Protestant Church in Heathsville was erected, in the said county of Northumberland, for the use and benefit of the religious congregation of the Methodist Protestant Church at Heathsville, which will assemble there for the purpose of worship; to have and to hold the same, in trust for the sole and exclusive use and benefit of religious congregations of regular orthodox Methodist Protestants which may thereafter assemble there to worship, when the said house is completed, or at any church which may hereafter be built at or near the present site or situation, for the purpose of religious worship of the Methodist Protestants, and for no other use or purpose whatever." The bill set forth that the church edifice was completed, and from that time regularly used and occupied by the Methodist Protestants' ministers and congregation from the date of completion up to the year of 1871, without molestation or claim from any other religious denomination. That subsequently a claim was asserted to the use of the edifice by the Methodist Episcopal Church South, and finally the complainants allege that they have been wholly deprived of this church edifice by the ministers and members of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. That in 1870 an effort was made to effect a corporate union of the two denominations of Methodist Protestants and Methodist Episcopalians in Virginia, and at a regular conference held at Norfolk in the year 1870 a majority of the delegates attending the conference, by their votes, agreed to dissolve, leaving each individual member free to connect himself with the Methodist Episcopalian organization or not, as he or she might prefer. That immediately after this vote, those members of the conference who refused to dissolve their organization, and formed the majority so voting, organized as a conference of the Methodist Protestant denomination, and continued to meet with delegates chosen according to the rules and regulations of their organization annually in conference up to 1874, when by its own action it united with and was incorporated in the Halston conference of Methodist Protestants for Virginia. That from its own body of ministers, and ministers deputed by the sister conference of Maryland, a minister was annually sent to officiate in the circuit of which the society worshipping at Heathsville formed a part, and quarterly meetings composed of delegates from this and the other societies in the circuit were held in the church building until the Methodist Protestants were locked out in 1886; and that now there is a regular orthodox Methodist Protestant minister in charge of the circuit embracing the society at Heathsville. That the trustees now holding the trust in question refused to allow the complainants and their fellow members to occupy or use in any way the said building so deeded to them in trust for the sole and exclusive use of regular orthodox Methodist Protestants worshiping at Heathsville. The defendants demur, and answer, denying every material allegation of the bill; and, in substance, claim that since the action of disbandment, referred to above, of the Heathsville congregation in 1871, —that is, since the declaration of the majority in the said church conference, —there has been no congregation of the Methodist Protestant Church at Heathsville; and assert their claim as Methodist Episcopalians to the said church property. There is much...