PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH v. HULL CHURCH

No. 71.

393 U.S. 440 (1969)

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES ET AL. v. MARY ELIZABETH BLUE HULL MEMORIAL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH ET AL.

Supreme Court of United States.

Decided January 27, 1969.


Attorney(s) appearing for the Case

Charles L. Gowen argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the brief were Robert B. Troutman and Frank S. Cheatham, Jr.

Owen H. Page argued the cause for respondents and filed a brief for respondents Eastern Heights Presbyterian Church et al. Richard T. Cowan, Frank B. Zeigler, and James Edward McAleer filed a brief for respondent Mary Elizabeth Blue Hull Memorial Presbyterian Church.

Briefs of amici curiae, urging reversal, were filed by George Wilson McKeag for Thompson, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church in the United States et al., and by Jackson A. Dykman and Harry G. Hill, Jr., for the Right Rev. John E. Hines, Presiding Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States.

Briefs of amici curiae, urging affirmance, were filed by William J. McLeod, Jr., and W. J. Williamson, pro se, for Williamson, Secretary of Concerned Presbyterians, Inc., and by Alfred J. Schweppe for Laurelhurst United Presbyterian Church, Inc., et al.


MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is a church property dispute which arose when two local churches withdrew from a hierarchical general church organization. Under Georgia law the right to the property previously used by the local churches was made to turn on a civil court jury decision as to whether the general church abandoned or departed from the tenets of faith and practice it held at the time the local churches affiliated with it. The...

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