79 Va. 402 | Va. | 1884
delivered the opinion of the court:
This suit was instituted by the appellees, as trustees of the Methodist Episcopal church south at Berryville, against the appellants, as trustees of the Methodist Episcopal church at Berryville, to determine the ownership of real estate situated in the town of Berryville, in the county of Clarke, devised by the
The said will was admitted to probate in 1854. The property was devised to Elizabeth Clint for life by the second clause. The third clause is as follows:
“After the death of Elizabeth Clink, I will and devise said house and lot to the trustees of the Methodist Episcopal church at Berryville, and their successors forever, to he held in trust by them for the use and benefit of the said Methodist Episcopal church, but in no event to be applied to any other than pious purposes, would say for a parsonage, in preference to anything else.”
The appellees claim to be the successors of the trustees of the Methodist Episcopal church at Berryville in 1854, and the persons designated by the will as beneficiaries of the will, and they appear to have belonged to the Methodist Episcopal church up to the year 1861. In that year, the Baltimore conference to which they were attached, and which, before that time, had belonged to the Methodist Episcopal church, severed its connection with the Methodist Episcopal church, and united with the Methodist Episcopal church south. With which church the ■said appellees and the church to which they belonged, united and became attached to the said Methodist Episcopal church south. In the division of the Methodist Episcopal church, which occurred in 1844, the Baltimore conference adhered to the Methodist Episcopal church, and this church at Berryville remained with that conference in that church and did not unite in the movement which culminated in the general convention which was held at Louisville, Kentucky, in the year 1845, which declared the jurisdiction heretofore exercised over the conferences there assembled as entirely dissolved, and established a separate ecclesiastical connection to be known by the style and title of the Methodist Episcopal church south; but the Baltimore conference decided in 1846 to take no part in the new movement. The rights of property, in accordance with the
After the action of the Baltimore conference in 1846, referred to above, questions of property belonging to the several congregations again arose, and disputes arising, the controversy found its way into the courts. In the case of Hoskinson & others v. Pusey & others and the case heard with it of White & others v. King & others, a dispute concerning a church in one case and a parsonage in the other, came before. this court. The property in question in these cases belonged to congregations attached to the Baltimore conference and had followed that conference in its adherence to the Methodist Episcopal church in 1846, and when the Baltimore conference separated from the said church and remained for some years unconnected with any other conference, and also when the said Baltimore conference reunited itself with the Methodist Episcopal church south after the close of the war, these congregations continued their connection with it, and in these suits claimed the property of the church under the general plan of separation of 1844 and under the decisions of the courts above referred to.
Upon that point the judge, delivering the opinion of this court in those cases, said: “ I find nothing in the plan devised in 1844 giving countenance to the idea that after the contemplated separation had been carried into effect a border conference should have the right to do more than merely make choice between the two churches—either to continue its connection with the church north or attach itself to the church south. After the southern conferences had organized themselves as a separate and distinct ecclesiastical body it could hardly have been designed by the general conference of the Methodist Episcopal church to sanction and provide for a further disintegration to take place in some emergency that might arise in the indefinite future. The object was a peaceful, speedy and permanent settlement of
And the circuit court having sustained the claim of the trustees of the Methodist Episcopal church, that decision was affirmed by this court. But the appellees assert their right to the property in question upon the ground that the general conference of the Methodist Episcopal church and the general conference of the Methodist Episcopal church south, had appointed a joint commission in 1876 to adjust matters of controversy between the two churches, which joint commission, sitting at Cape May in that year, had awarded the property in dispute to the Methodist Episcopal church south.
It will be remembered that this' adjudication on the part of the joint commission was in the year 1876. Under the will of Joseph Noble the property in dispute was devised to the Methodist Episcopal church at Berryville after the death of the life tenant, which did not occur until the year 1881. This property is claimed by the litigants in this cause under the will of Joseph Noble, which was admitted to probate in 1854. It can he
This court has said upon a similar question, in Hoskinson v. Pusey, supra, 481, “ The deed is the same in substance as the deed in Brooke v. Shacklett, and the construction must be the same. According to that construction the conveyance is not for the use of the Methodist Episcopal church in .a general sense. Such a conveyance in this state would be void. But it is a conveyance for the use of a particular congregation of that church, in the limited and local sense of the term—that is, for the members, as such, of the congregation of the Methodist Episcopal church, who, from their residence at or near the place of public worship, may be expected to use it for that purpose. Such a conveyance is valid under our statutes. See Code 1873, ch. 76, sec. 8. Who, then, are the beneficiaries entitled to the control and rase of the church building ? Looking to the deed alone, the answer would be, those who are members of the congregation or local society, and, as such, members of the Methodist Episcopal church.”
In this case, the appellees do not claim to belong to the Methodist Episcopal church at all, but to a different church
Decree reversed.