Amicus curiae, Memorial Church of the Good
Shepherd (“Good Shepherd”), is a Pennsylvania
nonprofit corporation that has been a parish of The
Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania (“the Diocese”) since
1870. Good Shepherd’s original 1870 charter remains
today as its governing document and has been
amended only once, in 1907, to change its corporate
name. Since its 1870 foundation, Good Shepherd’s
property has been titled solely and exclusively in its
own name apart from a period beginning in 1910,
when Good Shepherd granted and conveyed the
property to trustees for the Diocese, who, in 1967,
granted and conveyed all the property back to Good
Shepherd. Good Shepherd’s property has remained
titled solely and exclusively in its own name since the
Diocese’s reconveyance.

On February 19, 2009, the Diocese filed an action
in Pennsylvania state court to claim Good Shepherd’s
real and personal property, asserting that the property
“is held in trust for the Episcopal Church and the
Diocese” on the basis of internal church canons and
constitutions unilaterally adopted by those bodies,
declaring that the local congregation holds its property
in trust for the national church hierarchy. These
church canons and constitutions were adopted after
Good Shepherd obtained title to its property.
Ultimately, the state court action against Good
Shepherd arises from the Diocese’s decision in 2002 to
inhibit the sacramental and spiritual ministrations of
the incumbent rector of Good Shepherd and to depose
him as pastor in consequence of doctrinal,
ecclesiological, and canonical disputes between the
parties regarding: priestly and episcopal ordination,
clerical status, and religious vows; ecclesiastical
authority and spiritual jurisdiction; exercise of priestly
and episcopal faculties and pastoral direction;
acquisition, holding, and loss of ecclesiastical office;
and abandonment vel non of religious communion with
the Episcopal Church.