Atty. gen. wades into Episcopal tiff

The attorney general of Virginia has filed a motion to intervene in the court battle between the Episcopal Church and 11 breakaway congregations, arguing that he is obliged to defend the constitutionality of a state statute at the center of the trial.

The case in Fairfax County, Va., Circuit Court is over whether the conservative congregations, which left the national church over disputes related to the interpretation of Scripture and the acceptance of homosexuality, can keep the land and buildings. After voting to leave in 2006 and 2007, the congregations filed court papers saying they had -- under a Civil War-era Virginia law -- legally “divided” from the national church and thus were keeping the property.

But the Episcopal Church and the Virginia Diocese, its local branch, argue that there has been no legal “division” -- rather that a minority of dissidents opted to leave, and therefore have no rights to the land or buildings.