FORESTVILLE – When you pass by St. Peter’s Church on Park Street in Forestville, you may see some of its rich history in its architecture, but what you won’t see is the recent turmoil of the past eight years.

The congregation dates back to the 1830s and the church itself was built by parishioners in 1859. Until 2009 it was called St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, but in 2008 the congregation began thinking about leaving the diocese due to theological differences.

According to an OBSERVER article from December 2008, St. Peter’s was not the only church to leave due to differences in opinion about homosexuality and other issues.

The Rev. John D. Mears led the congregation at that time and said “It is already established in our minds, but we haven’t heard a word from the diocese.”

In May 2009, the church separated from the Episcopal Diocese of Western New York and incorporated as St. Peter’s Christian Church. St. Peter’s then joined the Anglican Church of North America in May 2010, according to the international diocese’s website.

Mears served as priest until his death in 2011 at the age of 99.

The issue since 2009 has been over the church building itself.

“In the Episcopal Church all of the buildings are held by the diocese for Episcopalians, so no congregation owns its own building,” the Rev. Vicki Zust of the Episcopal Diocese of Western New York explained.

According to Zust, for the past eight years the diocese has tried to work with the new St. Peter’s Church, but it has had to take other actions to resolve the situation.

“This has been a long process of trying to work with the small congregation that’s worshiping in the building on whether they were willing to buy the building and they weren’t willing to buy it from the diocese. This is a bishop’s decision, but it’s the result of a long process of negotiation,” she said in an interview. “Since the property is held in trust for Episcopalians, we can’t just give it away, so this is the legal process to dissolve the congregation since we no longer have any Episcopalians there and allow the property to move out of the hands of the Episcopal Church.”

When the diocese could not convince the new church to buy the building, its lawyer James S. Fanning filed for a dissolution hearing under the Religious Corporations Law.

“We still have some trustees there because they stay in office until they’re replaced. So for six years this corporation has been doing nothing, but we still have trustees. We talked with them and told them to give us our property back and they said no. I said fine then we’ll get you dissolved,” Fanning said.

The hearing will be held in Supreme Court in Mayville on Monday at 10 a.m.

“I will make the presentation that the Episcopal Church there, St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, is a completely non-operating corporation and it has been taken over. If you drive by, you will see the sign out front says ‘St. Peter’s Christian Church,’ which has nothing to do with the Episcopal Church. I am going to take a position that they have completely usurped the position of the Episcopal Church there and that being the case the Episcopal Church is doing absolutely nothing, it’s just a shell – it has no parishioners, it has no priest, it has no nothing. We are going to ask the supreme court to dissolve that Episcopal Church and those proceeds will be payable to the Episcopal Diocese,” Fanning explained.

While Fanning said that section 18 of the Religious Corporations Law is pretty straight forward, it is also relatively unused.

“You don’t see it almost ever,” he added.

The assets of the Episcopal Church – mainly the building – will be put up for public sale as a result of the hearing. Anyone can bid on the property including St. Peter’s Christian church.

Fanning added this is not a devious action, just one that is allowed by law and St. Peter’s Christian Church has been asked to attend the hearing on Monday.

Father Patrick White of St. Peter’s Christian Church refused to comment.