Episcopals sue for Stockton church

The Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin has filed its ninth and final lawsuit against self-incorporated parishes that turned their backs on the national church in 2007.

This one, filed Monday, is against St. John the Evangelist church in Stockton, which is insured for $7.5 million.

St. John was one of about 40 parishes in the San Joaquin Diocese that left the Episcopal Church over issues of scriptural interpretation, such as whether Jesus is the only way to God, and whether gays should be ordained as priests and bishops.

That move set up parallel dioceses — the original diocese, headquartered in Fresno under Bishop John-David Schofield, is under the oversight of the Anglican Church in North America. The Episcopal diocese, headquartered in Modesto under Bishop Jerry Lamb, filed a lawsuit in 2008 against the the Anglican diocese and its parishes. The additional lawsuits, filed this year, were necessary to claim the property of self-incorporated parishes.

Monday's action completes those lawsuits. The other eight parishes are St. Francis in Turlock and St. James — the historic Red Church — in Sonora, as well as St. Michael's, Ridge-crest; St. John's, Porterville; Redeemer and Hope, Delano; St. Columbia, Fresno; St. Paul's, Visalia; and St. Paul's, Bakersfield.

The arguments are these: The Episcopal Church says all property once held for use by the denomination belongs to it and must be returned. The former Episcopalians say that because the entire diocese voted to leave the national church but remained part of the worldwide Anglican Communion — to which the Episcopal Church also belongs — they have not moved to a different denomination and so should keep their property.

All property in dispute

The Rev. Lee Nelson, rector of St. John in Stockton, said his 160-year-old church predates the diocese. He also said he and the church's ruling body tried to negotiate with Lamb and the Episcopal diocese to come up with a dollar amount to avoid a lawsuit, but that their offers were rebuffed.

St. John, built on land deeded in the 1800s by Stockton's founder, Capt. Charles Weber, owns most of the city block on which the church sits, including an office building and Cancun, a restaurant.

"We have some properties that we thought we'd be willing to hand over, properties with income," Nelson said. "We didn't think we owed them anything, but we thought, for the sake of peace, we'd be willing to pay them something and move on. But we didn't even get to sit down and talk about it.

"They're filing for all the property, all the bank accounts and everything in the church, without any caveat at all," he said. "They want the paper clips and everything."

Lamb acknowledged that the Episcopal diocese is only interested in the return of the church's property — all of it, including the business sites.

"We'll negotiate with anybody about how we can retrieve our property," Lamb said. "The bottom line is, it's our intention to return the property to the Episcopal Church."

Lamb and the Episcopal diocese won its initial lawsuit against Schofield in July 2009. That decision is before the 5th District Court of Appeal. Oral arguments, originally scheduled to begin next week, have been pushed back to mid-October.

Bee staff writer Sue Nowicki can be reached at snowicki@modbee.com or 578-2012.