Judge Rules Korean Church, Not Presbytery, Owns Property

Ruling in a lengthy and bitter dispute between the nation’s oldest Korean-American church and its governing religious body, a Los Angeles judge said that church property claimed by both parties belongs to the congregation.

Superior Court Judge Dion Morrow, in a decision released Wednesday, ruled that the Korean United Presbyterian Church of Los Angeles is the owner of the buildings and grounds in the 1300 block of Jefferson Boulevard where the congregation has gathered for more than 50 years.

During trial, lawyers for the Korean church and the defendant, the Presbytery of the Pacific--a 23,000-member nonprofit corporation that handles financial and judiciary matters in 56 Presbyterian churches in Los Angeles--said an appeal would likely follow, regardless of which side won the decision.

Counsel for the Presbytery, which has 60 days to file an appeal, could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

The dispute that led to the lawsuit began in 1986, when arguments within the congregation began to disrupt church activities, the court decision states. As a result, the Rev. Sang Bon Woo, pastor of the Korean church, was stripped by the Presbytery of his position as head of the congregation’s governing board.

The deposed minister decided to leave the Presbytery and took most of the congregation with him.

The Presbytery labeled the minister a renegade and required that his congregation turn over the church property to a Presbytery-approved Korean congregation.

“We are pleased that the issue of whether the Presbytery has the ability to determine who is the rightful congregation has finally been addressed by the court,” said Edward Masry, lawyer for the Korean church, which was founded in 1903 by former sugar cane workers from Hawaii who were among the first Koreans to settle in the United States. “We hope that the Presbytery will not carry the case any further and will allow the Korean church to worship as it pleases.”

Although officials of the Presbytery conceded that the property and buildings, valued at $3 million, were paid for or were in the process of being paid for by the congregation, Presbytery lawyers argued that an early church deed, signed in 1937 and bearing the name of the Presbytery, was proof of longstanding understanding of who owned the property.

“The properties of individual churches have always been understood to be held in trust for the denomination,” Robert Long, attorney for the Presbytery, said during the trial.

The policy is written in the governing body’s constitution or Book of Order and is commonly practiced by all member congregations, he maintained.

“Did the (Korean church) ever agree to hold its property in trust for the Presbytery . . .? Clearly the answer is no,” Morrow wrote. “. . . The bylaws and articles and the declarations in the Book of Order are nothing more than expressions of present intention. . . . They do not create an express trust.”

The Presbyterian Church U.S.A. Inc.--of which the Presbytery is a member--has been involved in court disputes with several seceding churches across the nation. Decisions in those cases have been conflicting. In some instances property has been awarded to the congregation; in others, property has gone to the Presbyterian Church U.S.A.