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Article: AME Zion Church gets support in legal dispute.(African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in case concerning breakaway congregation)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- The Christian Century
- Article date:
- August 2, 2000
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 The Christian Century Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Six major church groups have filed friend-of-the-court briefs supporting the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in its lawsuit against a breakaway congregation in Temple Hills, Maryland. The case involves John A. Cherry and most of the 24,000 members of Full Gospel AME Zion Church, who left the parent denomination in July 1999 and formed From the Heart Church Ministries. When the congregation left, it took with it more than $40 million in assets, including sanctuaries, school buildings and a Learjet.
The breakaway congregation sued the AME Zion Church to try to control those assets and the denomination countersued, claiming that Cherry was trying to swindle ...