A DISPUTE over a $2-million legacy has left a congregation of the Episcopal Church in the United States worshipping in a former bank drive-through, as it waits for a court order that could release money to build a new church.

St Mary’s, Hillsboro, in Texas, is one of six church congregations loyal to the national Episcopal Church to have been evicted from their place of worship after a 12-year legal battle with the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA).

The Episcopal diocese of Fort Worth broke away from the Episcopal Church in 2008 over issues including the consecration, in 2003, of a gay bishop, Gene Robinson. A prolonged legal wrangle over ownership of $100-million-worth of church property ended last year with a victory for the diocese, which is now part of ACNA.

The remaining 14 congregations now form a diocese known as the Episcopal Church in North Texas (News, 27 August 2021).

St Mary’s has a remaining legal dispute over a $2-million bequest left in the will of Dr Hendley McDonald, which ACNA insists belongs to it, as it has retained the original building and the congregation is called St Mary’s Episcopal Church.

The Episcopal Church in North Texas congregation has argued in court that the will was filed after the 2008 split, and that the McDonalds were faithful US Episcopalians, not members of an ACNA congregation. Mr McDonald’s will also specified that, if St Mary’s no longer existed when he died, the money should go to the diocese of Texas of the “Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America”, the historic name of the Episcopal Church.

A senior churchwarden, David Skelton, told the Episcopal News Service: “He very clearly did not want this money to go to some breakaway non-Episcopalians calling themselves Anglicans.”

ACNA has said that naming rights were part of its court victory, together with the physical church property.

Mr Skelton has bought a two-acre plot for a new church at a cost of $100,000, in Hillsboro, for the congregation of St Mary’s, in the hope that he will be refunded when the legal dispute over the bequest ends.

The next hearing in the case was due to be held on 14 January. In the mean time, the congregation have converted a former bank drive-through in the town into a temporary worship space. Now more visible, with a large sign, the small congregation of ten has grown by eight people since its move.