Stanley Forman Reed

“ The church members already here, immigrants and nativeborn, while habituated to look to Moscow for religious direction, were accustomed to our theory of separation between church and state. The Russian turmoil, the restraints on religious activites and the evolution of a new ecclesiastical hierarchy in the form of the 'Living Church,' deemed noncanonical or schismatic by most churchmen, made very difficult Russian administration of the American diocese. ”

“ In upholding the validity of Article 5-C, the New York Court of Appeals apparently assumes Article 5-C does nothing more than permit the trustees of the Cathedral to use it for services consistent with the desires of the members of the Russian Church in America. Its reach goes far beyond that point. By fiat it displaces one church administrator with another. ”

“ The law knows no heresy, and is committed to the support of no dogma, the establishment of no sect. The right to organize voluntary religious associations to assist in the expression and dissemination of any religious doctrine, and to create tribunals for the decision of controverted questions of faith within the association, and for the ecclesiastical government of all the individual members, congregations, and officers within the general association, is unquestioned. ”

“ Unions could have officers with such affiliations and political purposes as they might choose but the Government was not compelled to allow those officers an opportunity to disrupt commerce for their own political ends. ”

“ This granted a large measure of autonomy, when the Russsian ruling authority was unable to function, subject to 'confirmation later to the Central Church Authority when it is reestablished.' Naturally the growing number of American-born members of the Russian Church did not cling to a hierarchy identified with their country of remote origin with the same national feeling that moved their immigrant ancestors. These facts and forces generated in America a separatist movement. ”

“ As the Court of Appeals of Kentucky thought that certain acts of the Louisville Presbytery and the General Assembly of the United States, in pronouncing the additional elders duly elected, were void as beyond their functions, id., 13 Wall. at page 693, 20 L.Ed. 666, [18] it refused the plea of the antislavery group and left the proslavery elders and trustees in control of the Walnut Street Church. ”

“ That district was North American in area, created pursuant to resolutions adopted at a sobor held at Detroit in 1924. [2] This declared autonomy was made effective by a further legislative requirement that all the churches formerly administratively subject to the Moscow synod and patriarchate should for the future be governed by the ecclesiastical body and hierarchy of the American metropolitan district. [3] The foregoing analysis follows the interpretation of this article by the Court of Appeals of New York, an interpretation binding upon us. ”

“ The Court of Appeals of New York, reversing the lower court, determined that the prelate appointed by the Moscow ecclesiastical authorities was not entitled to the Cathedral and directed the entry of a judgment that appellee corporation be reinvested with the possession and administration of the temporalities of St. Nicholas Cathedral. St. Nicholas Cathedral of Russian Orthodox Church in North America v. ”