Mobile Home Sales in Stateburg, SC

SUMTER, S.C. (AP) — Many Christians believe in the adage that “only God can turn a test into a testimony,” but two Sumter congregations have more than believed that in the last decade with their facilities. They’ve lived it.

The pastors of The Church of the Holy Comforter in downtown Sumter and The Church of the Holy Cross in Stateburg sat down recently to discuss “the cloud” over their churches since 2013 from a legal battle about properties and how the conflict brought “a sense of clarity” to ministry.

On Aug. 17, the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled six more parishes - including the two in Sumter - that broke away from The Episcopal Church in 2012 can keep their properties in a revision to the court’s ruling in April, when it seemed those churches were destined to lose their facilities.

In the complex case, the state’s high court had to create a new standard in its own words to determine under law whether congregations agreed to a 40-year-old canon that The Episcopal Church argued was sufficient to create a trust interest in property after a 2017 court ruling had five separate opinions from the justices.

The four months of waiting and uncertainty for the two local churches between April and August were symbolic of the nine-year back-and-forth legal case the breakaway Anglican Diocese of South Carolina faced with its properties with The Episcopal Church and The Episcopal Church in South Carolina. The split from 2012 was over growing theological divides.

The Rev. Michael Ridgill of The Church of the Holy Cross and the Rev. David Booman of The Church of the Holy Comforter said the uncertainty made ministry more clear and “unifying.”

Booman has been at Holy Comforter since last year, and his only other position in full-time ministry was at another breakaway Anglican diocese in the state, St. Michael’s Church in Charleston.

His 10 years between the two churches “has not been easy, but I have seen time and again God use it for good,” Booman said.

“Especially here at Holy Comforter, I think it has enabled us to really get clarity on what is the mission, what are we about,” he said. “I think we have ultimately come through it all that whether we stay or whether we go, we are going to be focused on the mission of Jesus if we are in a church building or if we are meeting in a park under a tree. It’s all about the mission of Jesus, and I think our folks have really embraced that, and they have communicated that to me.”

Both pastors thanked other churches, even across denominations, for their prayers and offerings of support, including potentially sharing their worship space if they lose their properties.

Ridgill and Booman also see it as a “gift of grace” from God and humbling that their congregations are able to keep their facilities.

Both churches go back more than a century. The Church of the Holy Comforter’s sanctuary opened in 1909, and The Church of the Holy Cross’ facility was constructed in 1850. Both have upscale monetary values.

That is a common theme across the Anglican dioceses, and the state Supreme Court ruled eight congregations did create a trust and will be required to hand over ownership of their properties to The Episcopal Church. Some have already done so this summer.

“It’s humbling because it’s not like we are better than the other churches that lost their property, you know,” Ridgill said. “It’s humbling in the sense that we don’t deserve this, but then we never do. It’s always a gift. So, the question with it as a Christian is when we receive this gift of grace, we don’t keep it. We pass it on, and I think that helps us with our focus.”

Both pastors said dioceses across the state are reaching out to see how they can help the eight parishes that must transfer properties.

For the two local congregations, it is also a time now of “renewed excitement and possibilities” in reaching out to the Sumter community in new and creative ways.

It appears “the cloud” has been lifted for good now regarding parish properties, but the men said their congregations were prepared to “win or lose” in the case.

“To have individuals and congregations live into that common mission and ministry, it’s a blessing,” he said. “When you are under the threat of losing your property, then you ask, ‘Well, what do we have left?’

“And what we have left is always the core, the people, and that hasn’t changed. So, I feel, either way, we are in a stronger position because of our circumstances.”

Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The future of one of Walterboro’s oldest and most historic churches continues to hang in the balance after a long-awaited ruling passed by the South Carolina Supreme Court last week.

Established in 1855 and located in the historic district of downtown Walterboro, St. Jude’s Church will be losing its rights to the property and church.

A legal battle has ensued between the Anglican and Episcopal churches for the last ten years. Historically, all churches were originally part of a trust that belongs to the National Episcopal Church. The battle was sparked by the separation of some parishes from the Episcopal Church, according to legal opinion. This separation prompted an ongoing legal battle about property rights.

St. Jude’s filed a petition for a rehearing by the Supreme Court on May 5, 2022. There has been no movement by the court since it was filed.

Some churches in the Lowcountry have already left their properties, leaving a number of them seeking other areas to worship in.

“What this means for us is that we have to wait for the court before any final plans are made,” says Rev. Newman H. Lawrence, rector of St. Jude’s Church in Walterboro. “We are in a place of waiting and praying that the Holy Spirit will guide us as to what happens next.”

According to Lawrence, who spoke to The Press and Standard on August 1, there is no timeline yet on when the church may have to leave, should the S.C. Supreme Court still rule against them.

Fourteen of the twenty-nine currently Anglican churches involved in this legal decision will lose all rights to their property and must begin the legal process of transferring their properties to the Episcopal Church as part of the S.C. Supreme Court’s original ruling. The impacted churches are scattered throughout the Lowcountry, from Charleston to Colleton counties. St. Jude’s is the only Anglican church in Colleton County impacted by the ruling.

The other half of the churches involved in the lawsuit will be unaffected by the Supreme Court’s ruling and retain their personal property. Based upon how the individual church laws, or “canons,” were written, those particular churches never conceded to the church law.

“The decision from the Supreme Court is a difficult one to have learned. Our hearts mourn the loss of historic buildings where we have worshiped for generations,” Lawrence said in a prior interview with The Press and Standard. “But, we know the church is more than a building. We will continue to gather and worship the risen Lord, wherever that may be.”

Legal counsel continues to weigh in on both sides of this case. Details include many “what if’s,” such as how the Anglican churches who are losing their properties will be reimbursed or compensated for “betterments” made during the ten years that this court case was being heard. These “betterments,” as they are called in the ruling, refer to physical improvements, expansions, and general upkeep of the church properties.

Other uncertainties include the future of parishioner grave sites that have been purchased and planned for by Anglican members, as well as current graves and cemeteries. The question also remains of whether the new owners of the church properties will allow the Anglican churches to remain as leaseholders.

“The ruling raises many issues that will have to play out in the coming weeks before any actions are taken, so our first response must be to quiet our hearts before the Lord as we pray for the grace to meet the days ahead,” state the Rt. Rev. Chip Edgar in his letter to all Anglican churches in the area. “Some of our churches are relieved that the court ruled their property does indeed belong to them. Some are grieving deeply, as the court’s ruling went in the opposite direction. Edgar continues, “The Lord has provided, and always will provide, all we need to proclaim the gospel, bind up the brokenhearted, heal the sick, set the captives free, do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.”

Edgar also asked for continued prayers “for those of us who are called to lead as we sort through the difficult decisions of the days ahead.

According to the S.C. Supreme Court, the fourteen Anglican churches that must hand over their properties to the Episcopal Church are:

The Church of the Good Shepherd in Charleston

The Church of the Holy Comforter in Sumter

St. Bartholomew’s Church in Hartsville

St. John’s Parish Church on John’s Island

St. Jude’s Church in Walterboro

St. Luke’s Church in Hilton Head

St. David’s Church in Cheraw

St. Matthew’s Parish Church in Fort Motte

Old St. Andrew’s Parish Church in Charleston

The Church of the Holy Cross in Stateburg

Trinity Church in Myrtle Beach

Holy Trinity Church in Charleston

Christ Church in Mount Pleasant

St. James Church in James Island.

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SUMTER COUNTY, SC (WIS) - When you first see The Ruins historic home in Sumter County, the first thing that comes to mind is how nice it would be to sit on the porch.

This Saturday, Col. Rett and Pat Summerville invite you to do so. No, Col. Summerville's name is not misspelled: his mother loved all things Southern but wanted his name to be unique.

The 1784 home is on the National Register of Historic Places and part of the Stateburg Historic District designated by the South Carolina Department of Archives and History.

Volunteers from the Historic Columbia Foundation and others dedicated to preserving historic sites in the Stateburg area have decorated the mansion in antebellum-period Christmas style. Docents in period costumes will guide guests through the rooms.

"This is our third year of hosting this open house and we couldn't do it without these dedicated volunteers," Pat Summerville said. Harriet Jackson, Judy Liner, Carl DuBose and Carol-Anne Bostic and others have spent hours getting the home ready for guests. Other volunteers include Janice Bowman, Pat Itter, Dena Creel, Ellen Hayhurst, and Peggy Culler-Hair.

The dining room table, built in Camden, is set with food created by longtime Historic Columbia Foundation volunteer Elizabeth Wyckoff, now deceased.

Last year more than 600 guests toured the home.

It's original owner, Revolutionary War hero John Mayrant, bought the property from fellow war hero General Thomas Sumter and was the first to plant cotton in the region. The cotton fields are long gone but what became of Mayrant's original cabin remains, remarkably preserved.

A longtime resident of the home who sold it to the Summervilles, Mrs. Amelia DeSaussure Barnwell Harper, will be there to tell guests about her memories living there.

Upon retiring from the U.S. Air Force, Col. Summerville and his wife worked to collect and return some of the home's original furnishings, including a circa 1838 sideboard built by noted furniture maker Anthony Quervelle. The piece was original to the home, but it had been sold in the early 1980's. Summerville tracked down the owner of the massive piece, who was willing to part with it since he couldn't fit it through his door.

Summerville has always had a respect for historic sites since his boyhood home was the Nathan Moore House in Oak Park, IL, designed in 1895 by Frank Lloyd Wright.

"The surrounding land of the Ruins has been put into a conservancy to protect it for the future," said Pat.

The Summervilles also have a small museum of tools and other items found on the site.

Other events include Revolutionary War-era demonstrations from Frank Holloway, who fires a period replica mortar, hayrides, and a display of other historic sites in Stateburg.

The Ruins site is at 1257 Barnwell Drive in Stateburg, about 1/2 mile off Highway 261 from 378. The Open House is from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. Saturday. Admission is free but donations will be accepted for historic preservation projects.

Copyright 2016 WIS. All rights reserved.

Since 2012, South Carolina Anglicans have been in legal dispute with the Episcopal Church. A mixed State Supreme Court ruling in April 2022 began the conclusion of the last major church property dispute in the North American Anglican realignment.

Of the 36 Anglican parishes that were parties in the South Carolina Episcopal Church lawsuit, 28 retained control of their church properties, including the historic St. Michael’s, St. Philip’s and Old St. Andrew’s churches in Charleston. The Anglican Diocese of South Carolina (ADOSC) counts a total of 53 parish and mission churches.

Of the eight ruled by the South Carolina State Supreme Court to lose control of their properties:

The Episcopal Church also filed a Petition for Reconsideration and Rehearing in September, asking the Court to reverse their ruling regarding two Anglican parishes whose property rights were affirmed on August 17: Old St Andrew’s in Charleston (the oldest church building south of Virginia dating to 1706), and the Church of the Holy Cross in Stateburg. Those parishes await court action.

St. John’s Parish Church on Johns Island was the first to turn over property to the Episcopal Church, leaving their historic building and grounds to begin meeting for services at a nearby middle school. An Episcopal Church-affiliated congregation began worship on the historic site July 17.

During his recent visit to Charleston for the Mere Anglicanism conference, Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) Archbishop Foley Beach preached at the invitation of the St. John’s congregation.

The decision of Archbishop Beach – who presumably would be welcome in the pulpit of any of the three dozen Charleston-area ACNA parishes – to preach at St. John’s Parish Church signaled care for and support of those who had lost properties.

“It was an incredible encouragement to have the Archbishop with us. We are humbled he chose to be with us,” St. John’s Rector Jeremy Shelton shared with me in an interview this week. “It’s been six months for us now and it has been an incredible blessing. It is difficult, for sure. But God is faithful and our congregation is growing in size, faithfulness, and unity. The Gospel speaks much louder than anything else.”

Shelton, who became St. John’s Rector at the time of the property handover, explained that the invitation for Beach to preach came about after a parish staff member suggested it. The Archbishop’s office circled back within a month, suggesting the weekend of January 29.

Johns Island is a formerly rural community that has quickly become a Charleston suburb. The fourth largest island on the United States’ East Coast, it now has a population nearing 30,000, a growth rate of 114 percent since 2000. Named for Saint John Parish in Barbados by the first English colonial settlers, there is a long history of Anglican worship on the island, with St. Johns Parish Church founded in 1734.

“Our neighbors are from Minnesota, New York, Maryland, Ohio and Pennsylvania,” Shelton, who hails from Kentucky but has lived in South Carolina for nearly 20 years, tells me of his own residential subdivision on the island. “They are coming from everywhere.”

Asked about what has most surprised the congregation amidst the period following the property handover, Shelton answered that congregational unity has grown.

“We were essentially three different congregations worshiping in one space,” Shelton recounted of the church’s recent history. “We went from three different worship preferences to one, and there was almost no dissension at all. It has been such an incredible blessing.”

The relationship with the middle school began about 15 years ago when parishioners prayed together for the school, then scheduled to close, to remain open, leading parishioners to become more intimately involved. It now has a magnet program and is a School of Excellence.

“In 15 years, going from a school that was scheduled to be closed to being a School of Excellence is nothing short of miraculous,” Shelton says of the school where his oldest son was a student and another son is presently enrolled. “They were arms wide open from the moment I reached out to them.”

Shelton said that of the parish congregation, about 250 persons came to worship at the middle school cafeteria, while about a dozen remained with the building as it transferred to the Episcopal Church.

“We are seeing new people come almost on a weekly basis,” Shelton reported. “We hosted a newcomer’s lunch this past Sunday since we began at the middle school and there were about thirty [new participants].”

The transition has not been without challenges: school fire alarms displaced the congregation in the middle of reciting the creed on Sunday, only to recur two weeks later at the conclusion of a service. Worship in a school cafeteria also means visible chewing gum adhered to the bottom of folding tables that double as pews. But St. John’s has a history of making it work.

“We have people who have been members for 94 years that have left the historic buildings and grounds and are now worshiping in the cafeteria of the school,” Shelton notes. Longtime church members recall these aren’t the first challenges the parish faced: in the 1950s, limited space necessitated Sunday school classes meeting in an attic and a graveyard.

“We’ve always made it work,” an elderly parishioner recounted to Shelton. God, he insists, is faithful: “We’re not just making it work, we’re thriving, due to God’s faithfulness and the resolve of the congregation.”

One challenge has already been overcome: the parish initially utilized garages and living rooms for storage, but now a central home base has been established in Resurrection Hall, which houses offices, storage and a trailer at one central location less than a mile from the school.

“You can do anything for a little while,” Shelton laughs. “What we have seen is that simply being in the community, we are hosting bible studies in people’s homes but also coffee shops, restaurants and parks. People are seeing us out and that is a way of beginning conversations.”

Update: St. Matthew’s Church in Fort Motte has successfully completed a capital campaign to buy back their church building, graveyard and parish hall. More here.

COLUMBIA — The S.C. Supreme Court ruled some of the parishes that broke away from the Episcopal Church more than a decade ago must hand over their properties to the national church and its affiliated South Carolina diocese.

The court’s April 20 ruling orders 14 of 29 parishes that split from the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina to begin the legal process for handing over ownership of the properties to the Episcopal Church.

Those churches, which broke away to form the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina, did expressly agree to an Episcopal Church law that places all parish properties in a trust belonging to the national church, the court said.

The other 15 breakaway churches can retain their property since the congregations never explicitly conceded to the church law, known as the 1979 Dennis Canon, the court said.

The ruling appears to finally conclude the drawn-out controversy that originated in 2010 and involves religious properties valued at over $200 million.

Justice John Few wrote in his majority opinion that the April 20 ruling is final.

“From our decision today, there will be no remand,” Few wrote. “The case is over.”

Regarding the use of trademarks and emblems, the state court deferred to federal courts. Those matters are currently on appeal in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The state court also ruled the national church remains the beneficiary of other diocesan properties, namely Camp St. Christopher on Johns Island.

An official with the state’s Episcopal Diocese said the group is “studying the opinion” and intends to have a more complete comment on the court’s ruling later.

The Anglican Diocese of South Carolina said its legal counsel is still reviewing the ruling and its implications.

Some expressed disappointment at the court’s ruling. Longtime Episcopalian Steve Skardon said secular courts have no business, per the U.S. Constitution, getting involved in churches’ theological disputes. He called the Supreme Court’s decision “a huge mistake” that will set precedent for other congregations to involve courts in their disagreements.

“It’s going to affect every church in South Carolina,” Skardon said. “Now, instead of working things out with church hierarchy, you can just run to the courts.”

The Supreme Court said the decision “is not precedential in any future church property dispute.”

The task before the Supreme Court was to determine whether the court’s 2017 ruling was in fact a final decision on the ownership of 29 of the breakaway parishes. It was initially thought the court had ruled 29 of the 36 parishes that broke away from the Episcopal Church were to hand over their properties. But when the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in December over the case, it was clear there had been confusion over what the court actually decided in 2017.

The court’s April 20 ruling clarified that the 2017 ruling was not a final judgment pertaining to 29 of the breakaway parishes.

In making its recent ruling, the court examined each parish individually to determine whether the congregations acceded to the Dennis Canon. The canon is a church law adopted in 1979 that states all church property is held in trust by the national Episcopal Church.

The court contends that some of the 29 congregations expressly conceded to the canon, such as Christ’s Church in Mount Pleasant.

Others didn’t, the court said. For example, Charleston churches St. Philip and St. Michael’s took no more action than to “pledge or affirm in their constitutions or bylaws allegiance to the National Church and its teachings,” the court said.

The controversy started in 2010 when dozens of churches left the Episcopal Church over doctrinal differences.

The disassociated diocese filed a lawsuit in state circuit court hoping to maintain ownership of their properties. A circuit court judge ruled in 2014 the breakaway congregations could keep their real estate. The national church appealed the decision, which went before the Supreme Court in 2015, which issued its decision in 2017 with the five justices issuing separate opinions.

The collective result of the five opinions was the central issue before the court regarding the April 20 ruling.

It now appears the matter is finally resolved.