ATLANTA — Historic Christ Church, a prominent Savannah fixture since Georgia's colonial days, now is divided in a bitter legal dispute over its future sparked by an argument about homosexuality that has riven Episcopal churches nationwide.
The congregation, which proudly embraces its nickname, "The Mother Church of Georgia," has been wrangling over the ownership of its property in the heart of downtown Savannah ever since 87 percent of the members voted to split with the Episcopal Church in 2007. They were among dozens of congregations that broke away from the denomination in the years after the national group affirmed its first openly gay bishop.
On Monday the divided church membership battled in Georgia's Supreme Court over who owns the $3 million property and the building. Many legal observers believe the case could reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
Several hundred of the breakaway congregation's members still meet at the stately building, designed to look like a Greek temple, which looms over Bull Street. A smaller group of church adherents who side with the national group have made their temporary spiritual home at another nearby church.
"The Episcopalians just wish to get back to their church, their property and under the law of Georgia they are entitled to that access," said Mary Kostel, an attorney for the national group, which numbers roughly 2 million members in the U.S. "The way the First Amendment works is if you no longer want to worship in a hierarchical church you go — but you don't take the property with you."
The breakaway church's supporters, meanwhile, say the argument is about more than property rights.
"For our congregation, this lawsuit is about defending the historic Christian faith," said the Rev. Marc Robertson, the church's pastor.
The Supreme Court gallery was packed with observers. They were treated to oral arguments that sounded like a history class, as lawyers traced the roots of the congregation back to Georgia's very founding.
Christ Church was established in 1733, when Georgia became a colony. Gen. James Oglethorpe, Georgia's founder, attended services there, and Juliette Gordon Low, the founder of the Girl Scouts, was one of several famous congregants.
Oglethorpe set aside land for the church while planning Savannah's construction, and he and several Native Americans attended the first service in February 1733, according to the congregation's history.
In the aftermath of the Revolutionary War, Georgia lawmakers voted in 1789 to incorporate the church and granted it a title to the property. In 1823 the church and two other congregations in south Georgia voted to join the national diocese. That's where the heart of the legal disagreement is rooted.
A Chatham County court ruled in favor of the national group's claim on the property in October 2009, and the Georgia Court of Appeals later agreed. The courts concluded that state laws and church documents — including a 1979 rule that placed parish property in trust for the national group — should govern the case.
But the church's attorney, Paul Painter, countered that those rules don't apply here because the property wasn't acquired by "deed," as the law requires, but was instead granted by a special legislative act. He also said the appeals court's ruling gave the national church far too much power over land rights.
The Episcopal Church countered that its internal rules should resolve any land dispute, regardless of what state law dictates. The church agreed to those rules back in 1823 and it can't back out now, said Kostel.
"When it came into the diocese, it relinquished its separate identity," she said.
Greg Bluestein can be reached at http://twitter.com/bluestein