Breakaway Petaluma congregation returns building to Episcopal Church

A Petaluma congregation that split from the Episcopal Church over the issue of gay ordination but retained a 118-year-old church building has agreed to return the property to the church, ending a nearly three-year stalemate.

Under terms of a settlement, St. John’s Anglican Church will move out of the building at 5th and C streets by July 1 and give up claim to about $450,000 in endowments.

In exchange, its leader, the Rev. David Miller, will receive a greater share of ownership of his family’s Petaluma house, which was purchased in part with church money.

The Rev. Norman Cram, whose Episcopol congregation has been waiting in borrowed space to take over the building, said he looked forward to “a focus on ministry.” His first service in the church is July 1.

“It’s been a tough struggle,” said Cram, leader of St. John’s Episcopal, who sued Miller’s congregation last year over rights to the property. “It’s so nice to have the litigious process behind us.”

A spokesman for St. John’s Anglican, administrator Mike McIntosh, declined to comment beyond saying a new location for his group has not been selected. The congregation’s last service in the building will be Sunday, June 28.

The settlement brings to an end a controversy that began in 2006 when the congregation’s membership voted to leave the diocese because the church supports the ordination of homosexuals.

Following the example of breakaway parishes nationwide, the congregation changed its name and transferred title of church property to itself, claiming the assets belonged to its members and not the Episcopal Church.

But a January state Supreme Court decision on a similar property dispute involving Southern California churches killed that legal argument.

In a unanimous decision, justices ordered the parishes to surrender their church buildings and other property to the mother church and froze bank assets.

The two Petaluma congregations, which had failed to reach agreement up to that point, entered serious negotiations immediately after.

They held a 12-hour mediation session in April and signed a deal May 14.

The shingled church building, the land it sits on and all books, records and personal property inside will be transferred to the Episcopal parish.

A sticking point over the past five months was the pastor’s house, appraised at $620,000, Cram said.

When it was purchased in 1999, the church made the downpayment with $198,000 from one of its endowments and held a 44 percent share of ownership, Cram said.

After lengthy talks, the church ceded half of its stake to Miller in exchange for his cooperation, Cram said.

“We went back and forth on that for significant time,” said Cram.