St. Bartholomew's Protestant Episcopal Church Charter

Citations

• 260 Pa. 284
• 103 A. 826
• 1918 Pa. LEXIS 507

Syllabus

<p>Corporations — Churches—Application for charter — Provisions of charter — Sufficiency—Doctrine — Church government— Constitutional law — Bight to raise question — Acts of May 5,1911, P. L. 172, Sec. 1; May 20,1918, P. L. 21f2, and May 1, 1907, P. L. 182.</p> <p>1. Constitutional questions can be raised only by one materially prejudiced, in person, property or estate, through preliminary steps taken to put into effect the act assailed, or by one subject to immediate burdensome penalties for nonobservance of the act, if it should be permitted to go into effect, or by one affected through actual operation of the act.</p> <p>2. The Act of May 5, 1911, P. L. 172, providing that when a religious congregation is desirous of becoming incorporated, “it shall be lawful” for the charter thereof to contain a clause as to the church’s ecclesiastical connection, “provided, however, the said constitution, canons, or ecclesiastical laws, doctrines, discipline and worship, be not inconsistent with the Constitution or laws of the United States or......of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and that they do not conflict with the control of the property of gaid corporation by the lay members of said corporation,” does not require that the terms of the proviso of the act appear in the certificate of incorporation, but merely that before a charter is granted containing a clause adhering to designated ecclesiastical laws, the tribunal passing upon the application must determine that these laws are not inconsistent with the requirements of the proviso of the act.</p> <p>3. Neither the provisions of the Act of May 20, 1913, P. L. 242, that the control of church property by the lay members “shall be exercised in accordance with and subject to the rules and regulations, usages, canons, discipline and requirements of the religious body or organization to which such......congregation......shall belong,” nor the provisions .of the Act of May 1, 1907, P. L. 132, amending prior acts, require that