The theology is irrelevant. This is a property dispute... if the Episcopal Church Diocese owns the church (and that's the way they're structured), and the congregation joins some other organization, then the Episcopal Bishop is right to want his stuff back. This is like an Elk Club deciding to become the Knights of Columbus. Fine... but they'll have to meet somewhere else, if the Elks own the Lodge
It's true of course the court will have nothing to say about "theology" but neither will it care much about Canon Law, which is the basis for the diocesan claim on the property. As I understand it churches in ECUSA hold their property "in trust" for the larger church, but that is subject to civil law regarding trusts. In at least some states such trusts are unilaterally revocable. Parishes in California have already begun this process and so far the California courts have said the canon law is not enforceable as it does not conform to civil law and trusts are governed by civil law. Obviously state laws will differ and the way Virginia courts see it is yet to be determined.
That has not been clearly resolved yet. First there is Virginia law, which conflicts with the Episcopal church's much more recent (ca 1980) Dennis Canon which essentially said that from that time forward the congregation holds the property "in trust for" the diocese. And there is a question as to whether that Canon was properly ratified.
The important part is that the Diocese apparently engaged in negotiations, offered a settlement, and then withdrew it and put the knife in.
The theology is just the reason for the "divorce", not the basis of whether there will be an automatic settlement according to a formula. In the "no-fault" atmosphere of today's courts regarding morality, fault probably won't be useful as a basis for recompense. On the other hand, the members of those churches were the ones who paid the monies to support those buildings, often for many generations of families, so they can't be expected to walk away with nothing.
That's a false statement as to these parishes. You may be confusing the Virginia cases with Florida, where the property was titled in the Bishop, and most of the faithful had to walk away. Here, the property is titled in the local parish, and the bishop is trying to argue a theory of an imposed trust.
There is also a theological error in your statement. In Anglican theology, as in Reformed, (see Art 19), the church is the people, not the property. So the technical argument is over ownership of real estate, not the Church.
Virginia statutory law explicitly in cases of denominational splits gives the property to the congregation, not the larger denomination.
Besides that, TEC's legal claim to individual properties dates only to 1980...put in place by the liberal leadership at the time...to mollify (blackmail) conservative congregations into submission. Each mainline (liberal) Protestant denomination (Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Episcopal) put similar measures in place at the time, for the same reason.
There has been no purchase or fundraising on the part of the denomination for these church properties, each congregation bought and maintained the properties themselves.
The key churches in the Virginia cases date to the 1750s anyway....well over 50 years before any Episcopal denomination in America existed.
These property disputes are an attempt at intimidation and stealing on the part of liberal churchmen, plain and simple.
The Anglicans didn't much care when they stole all those Catholic properties in the 16th century...