By MICHAEL VIRTANEN
Associated Press

ALBANY - In a property dispute stemming from the national Episcopal rift over the ordination of a gay bishop, New York's top court ruled Oct. 23 that the Rochester Diocese can keep the building once occupied by the breakaway All Saints Anglican Church.

Trial and midlevel appeals courts sided with the diocese, concluding it was entitled to the property under the rules of the church. The Court of Appeals agreed unanimously, saying All Saints had agreed years earlier to abide by a trust agreement covering ownership of the property.

With about 100 similar cases around the country, diocese attorney Thomas Smith said this appeared to be the first to reach a state's top court, though a midlevel California court reached the same conclusion this week. "Hopefully this will serve as the binding precedent in New York and a valuable precedent in other states," he said.

The parish in suburban Irondequoit quit supporting the diocese and the Episcopal Church of the USA after the 2003 ordination of its first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

"We conclude that the Dennis Canons clearly establish an express trust in favor of the Rochester Diocese and the National Church, and that All Saints agreed to abide by this express trust either upon incorporation in 1927 or upon recognition as a parish in spiritual union with the Rochester Diocese in 1947," Hon. Theodore Jones Jr. wrote. The other six judges agreed.

All Saints' attorney Eugene Van Voorhis had argued that the Dennis Canons, adopted in 1979 by the General Convention of the National Church, should not apply since they came nearly 30 years after it joined the diocese. He said the land and church were bought and built by the parishioners.

While Jones agreed that there was nothing in the original deeds or certificate of incorporation indicating the church property was held in trust for the diocese or National Church, he said applicable case law set in 1979 by the U.S. Supreme Court requires looking to the constitution of the general church.

"We find it significant, moreover, that All Saints never objected to the applicability or attempted to remove itself from the reach of the Dennis Canons in the more than 20 years since the national Church adopted the express trust provision," Jones wrote for the court.

In November 2005, a majority of delegates at the Rochester diocesan convention voted to end their relationship with All Saints.

The Rev. David Harnish, the All Saints rector, notified the diocese a month later that the parish had been placed under the authority of Archbishop Henry Orombi of the Anglican Church of Uganda.

The diocese sued and has since sold the building to another Protestant denomination for about $450,000. Smith said they'd been holding the funds depending on how the court case turned out. "The proceeds of the sale will be used for the mission of the diocese, of the parishes," he said last week.

The All Saints congregation has been meeting at a Lutheran church in Rochester.

Philip Fileri, chancellor of the Rochester Diocese, said five or six parishes from Long Island, Binghamton and the Buffalo area, out of 300 to 400 statewide, have taken steps like All Saints.

Calls to the church and its lawyer were not immediately returned.