Hard exit for Methodists

Thousands of congregations have left the United Methodist Church over the denomination’s embrace of same-sex marriage, but some that weren’t allowed to keep their properties are still fighting the matter in court.

Forty-four churches from the Alabama-West Florida Methodist conference met a setback on Aug. 23, when Alabama’s Supreme Court reaffirmed its decision to leave questions of disaffiliation to the UMC. The state’s high court had ruled in May that while the disaffiliation process appeared unduly complicated for churches, the dispute was an “ecclesiastical matter over which … we do not have jurisdiction.”

One of the churches filed a separate lawsuit Aug. 16 in a lower state court, asking the court to determine who owns its property. First Methodist Church of Demopolis has owned its own building since its founding in 1847 and wants to hold on to it if allowed to leave. Most UMC churches sign a “trust clause,” meaning the local conference keeps church properties in a common trust, but First Methodist argues it never signed such an agreement. At least three other churches have filed similar individual lawsuits.

For the churches that have not filed separate lawsuits, the UMC’s judicial court will decide on departures in October.

Brits battle over church mosque makeover

Days after the City Council of Stoke-on-Trent in England approved plans to convert a former church into a mosque, the Church of England demanded ­construction stop.

Church of St. John the Evangelist in Hanley, Staffordshire, was closed in 1985 due to its deteriorating structure. Last year Darul Falah Mosque purchased the building for roughly $180,000. The nonprofit Zamir Foundation submitted plans to the city to repurpose the church as a combination mosque and community center, but many locals decried the proposed change.

In approving the project in mid-August, church officials say, the City Council overlooked a covenant put in place on the building when it was sold in 2009. They say the covenant states if the building is to be used as a place of worship, it must remain a church. The Telegraph reported church commissioners will consider going to court if the Zamir Foundation ignores the covenant and continues construction. —B.M.

Breaking Russian links

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Aug. 24 signed a law banning religious groups with ties to Russia, a move that will specifically affect Ukrainian Orthodox churches. In 2019, Ukraine gained permission to form the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine, but some 8,000 congregations still belong to the Russia-linked Moscow Patriarchate. The new ban gives churches with any connection to Russia nine months to dissociate. Polling shows over 80 percent of Ukrainians distrust churches with known or perceived links to Russia. —B.M.