NEWPORT BEACH — Congregants of St. James the Great Episcopal Church won’t get their church building back.
In a surprise announcement, the Rev. John Taylor, bishop coadjutor of the Los Angeles diocese, said Monday that the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles will move forward with the sale of the St. James building on the Balboa peninsula, which was home to the congregation for nearly 71 years.
The decision runs against a recommendation made earlier this month by a national Episcopal church panel, which urged the diocese to not sell the property and, instead, hand it back to the roughly 100-person congregation.
Taylor was tasked to oversee all matters relating to the property after a hearing panel from the national church recommended local Bishop J. Jon Bruno be suspended for three years. Bruno had twice tried selling the 40,000-square-foot St. James building and surrounding property at 3209 Via Lido.
But Taylor said Monday that the diocese is obliged to honor the contract with developer Burnham Ward Properties LLC.
“There is a binding contract and it would not be a prudent fiduciary move to take any action that might breach the contract,” he said. “By doing so, we might be putting the diocese in a position of further legal and financial exposure.”
Proceeds from the sale would go to the diocese.
Taylor added that moving forward with the sale does not mean the diocese’s relationship with the St. James congregation has to end.
“I’ll do everything I can pastorally, logistically and financially to make it possible for them to be a thriving and abundant church,” he said. “We have to find ways to be together and work together and trust each other.”
The congregation was evicted from the building in June 2015 after Bruno entered into a sales contract with a developer who wanted to build luxury condominiums on the property. Though that sale eventually fell through, the bishop refused to allow the congregation back in the building.
For church members, Monday’s message from Taylor dealt a devastating blow, said congregant Walter Stahr.
“Both the presiding bishop and the hearing panel wanted the sale terminated, the doors of the church reopened and the mission status of the congregation restored,” Stahr said. “So, ordinary folks thought that once (Taylor) had the keys, he’d restore us to our rightful status. Today, it feels like we’ve been dealt defeat out of what we perceived to be victory.”
Stahr said he met with the developer a month ago and what the developer has in mind for the property simply will not work for the congregation.
“They have in mind a ‘rent-a-church’ concept where different congregations rent worship space,” he said. “What’s now the parish hall may be a commercial cafe. And the Sunday school classrooms might be leased as office or conference spaces. I don’t think we’d be interested in that kind of an arrangement.”
Stahr said his heart breaks for the congregation and its members, who’ve been meeting in a community room at the Newport Beach Civic Center for the last year and a half.
“We can’t continue perpetually in that space,” he said. “It’s not likely the congregation will survive for long if the building is sold because people will feel like the diocese has rejected and abandoned them.”
But, there’s always a little bit of hope, Stahr said.
“The sale hasn’t closed and we don’t know when it’s supposed to close,” he said. “So, it’s not quite over.”
Bruno remains at the helm and has not yet appealed the hearing panel’s decision, Taylor said. If Bruno fails to appeal by Sept. 11, the panel’s three-year suspension will become effective. Bruno was scheduled to retire in December.
Taylor said he remains open to reconciling with the congregation and has accepted an invitation from the Rev. Cindy Voorhees to attend a service at St. James.
“Reconciliation is in the eye of the beholder,” he said. “When there is a complex matter that has distracted our diocesan community for two years, reconciliation is going to be (a difficult process). You feel in your heart that you are right and you should get everything you want to get.”
Taylor praised St. James congregants for their resolve to remain together through tough times.
“Their purpose and drive these last two years demonstrated that they love their church building,” Taylor said. “(They’ve also shown) that they don’t need it to be the church to remain in unity and to praise God and serve God’s people.”
