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ADV Responds to Appeal by The Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Virginia (April 7, 2009) - In response to the appeal in the Virginia church property litigation filed on Tuesday, April 7 by the Diocese of Virginia and The Episcopal Church, the Anglican District of Virginia Vice-Chairman Jim Oakes issued the following statement: "We are saddened that The Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Virginia find it necessary to continue this litigation with an appeal filed during Holy Week. The appeal process will cost additional millions of dollars that could be spent on mission and ministry. Both sides have...

A two-year-old church property dispute between Episcopalians and Anglicans appears to be on its way to the Virginia Supreme Court. On Feb. 3, The Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Virginia together filed an appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court hoping to overturn a Dec. 19 decision by Fairfax Circuit Court Judge Randy Bellows in favor of the Anglican District of Virginia, known as ADV. On Feb. 10, the Episcopal appeal was followed by a motion asking for an exception to the Supreme Court's limit of 35 pages in appeal cases. The property dispute originally arose as a result of...

McLEAN, Va. (AP) — Nearly a dozen conservative church congregations in Virginia have won a lawsuit in which they sought to split from the U.S. Episcopal Church in a dispute over theology and homosexuality. The final rulings came Friday from a Fairfax County judge who said the departing congregations are allowed under Virginia law to keep their church buildings and other property as they leave the Episcopal Church and realign under the authority of conservative Anglican bishops from Africa. Several previous rulings had also gone in favor of the departing congregations. The diocese said it will appeal. Eleven Virginia congregations...

The Vietnamese Americans for McCain-Palin Coalition will hold an endorsement rally for McCain-Palin at Marriott Hotel-Fairview Park, Falls Church, Virginia on October 11, 2008. Civic, business and political leaders will join hundreds of community members to express their strong support for Senator McCain to be the next President of the United States. As one of the largest ethnic communities in Northern Virginia, Vietnamese Americans will play an important role in determining the outcome of battleground Virginia.

A woman was found dead in her apartment in Falls Church Thursday morning, according to the Fairfax County Police Department. Detectives are investigating 29-year-old Genevieve Orange's death as a homicide, police said. She appears to have died from blunt force trauma to the upper body. Officers found Orange's body after they were sent to her building, the Prestwick in the 6100 block of Leesburg Pike, to make a welfare check. Orange was a 2001 graduate of Virginia Tech. She was involved with the McLean Bible Church, according to a relative. "All of us here at the Futures Industry Association were...

A Fairfax County judge dealt the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Virginia a third defeat in their efforts to retain millions of dollars of church property being held by 11 breakaway congregations. On Tuesday, Circuit Judge Randy I. Bellows ruled on whether the U.S. Constitution's contracts clause applies to the case and whether the breakaway churches had the right to invoke what's been termed the "division statute," an 1867 law that allows a majority of a breakaway church to retain the property. ... The diocese and the Episcopal Church had asserted in an Aug. 11 hearing that even if...

A Statement from the Virginia Annual Council of the United Methodist Church July 11, 2008 On June 27, 2008, the Circuit Court of Fairfax County declared constitutional—as applied to the case before it—a Virginia statute which gives ownership of church property to breakaway congregations of a church denomination, which for years had held the property in trust for the purpose of worship within the denomination, according to denominational doctrine. The statute, known as the “Division Statute,” was enacted by the Virginia legislature only a few years after the end of the Civil War, and was used then as a vehicle...

For years, the Dar al Hijrah mosque was an isolated, slightly mysterious presence in Falls Church -- a stark stone building hidden behind a row of trees, rarely visited by non-Muslims in the multi-ethnic Culmore neighborhood, and known mostly for traffic jams on Leesburg Pike as worshipers arrived for Friday prayers. These days, the mosque bustles with visitors chattering in Spanish and Vietnamese as well as Persian and Urdu. Immigrants from a dozen countries gather there each Thursday, many with toddlers and baby strollers, to pick up donated chicken, bread, fruit and vegetables. On weekends, the doors are thrown open...

"The Court agrees that it was major divisions such as those within the Methodist and Presbyterian churches that prompted the passage of 57-9. However, it blinks at reality to characterize the ongoing division within the Diocese, ECUSA, and the Anglican Communion as anything but a division of the first magnitude..."

Even before the 2001 terrorist attacks, American-born imam Anwar al-Aulaqi drew the attention of federal authorities because of his possible connections to al-Qaeda. Their interest grew after 9/11, when it turned out that three of the hijackers had spent time at his mosques in California and Falls Church, but he was allowed to leave the country in 2002. New information later surfaced about his contacts with extremists while in the United States. Now, U.S. officials are saying for the first time that they believe that Aulaqi worked with al-Qaeda networks in the Persian Gulf after leaving Northern Virginia. In mid-2006,...

9/11 Panel Questions Two Hijackers' Help Sept. 11 Commission Wonders Why Two Hijackers Got Help From Two Muslim Men When in U.S. The Associated Press WASHINGTON June 27, 2004 — The FBI long has contended that not a single al-Qaida operative in the United States collaborated with the 19 hijackers in the Sept. 11 attacks. Yet the commission investigating the attacks has identified two Muslim men who may have had advance knowledge of the plot. The commission found that two hijackers got substantial help from Mohdar Abdullah and Anwar Aulaqi after settling in California in 2000. The bipartisan panel created...

Two University of Virginia students snatched a man off a street corner in the Tysons Corner area, tied him up in a Falls Church motel bathroom and demanded a $500,000 ransom, police said yesterday.

But for Julia Duin of the Washington Times, [and here's the link to her latest with lots of great details], and BabyBlue, none of us Episcopalians would know a thing about any of this. Thank God for bloggers and the Internet and this reporter. I will be emailing out the stories to all of my Episcopal friends, and I hope others will too. . . . Because . . . they sure won't learn the details from ENS or a friendly diocesan newsletter. And you know, I don't have any idea who will win in this lawsuit -- and it...

It was the perceptive Aldous Huxley who wrote that the greatest discovery in life is to learn that you’ve always been exactly where you are supposed to be. Behold, in Northern Virginia, across the Potomac River from the nation’s capital, I am supposed to be in Falls Church, where I launched my weekly newspaper almost 17 years ago, and I am not supposed to be in nearby Herndon or Prince William County. That’s been confirmed for me by the radically different approaches the aforementioned jurisdictions, all relatively close by, have taken on the matter of immigration. To me, such an...

RICHMOND -- Two Republican state legislators are accusing Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and other Democrats of embracing radical Islamic organizations that support terrorism, an allegation that has outraged the governor and Muslim leaders, who say the GOP is resorting to fear-mongering to win votes. As Republicans work to retain their majorities in the General Assembly, the two delegates from the Shenandoah Valley say they are conducting an investigation into Democrats' ties to the Muslim American Society and Dar Al Hijrah Islamic Center, both in Falls Church.

As you may have heard, we had a preliminary hearing on Friday, August 10, in court, at which the court heard arguments on our demurrers and pleas in bar. (Our demurrer asserted that even if everything The Episcopal Church claims is true, they still would have no case. The plea in bar argued that vestry members are immune from suit for actions taken in an official capacity as volunteers). After extensive argument over the plea of statutory immunity, the court was prepared to rule but suggested that the parties work out an agreement. After recess, the Diocese of Virginia and...

From NBC12 News A federal appeals court in Richmond is set to hear arguments in the case of a convicted Al Qaeda supporter. Ahmed Omar Abu Ali is a U.S. citizen born to a Jordanian father. He was raised in Falls Church. He was convicted in November 2005 of conspiracy to assassinate the president, conspiracy to hijack an aircraft and providing support to Al Qaeda. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Hundreds of Islamic centers in the United States have become a hot-bed of extremist activity; they promote violence, terrorism and hatred against America. "Our initial investigation has concluded there are between 400 to 500 radical Islamic centers in the U.S.," said David Gaubatz, the director of counterintelligence and counterterrorism for the Society of Americans for National Existence. "In those places, they preach an extreme version of Islam that says America and the West is the enemy. They espouse violence, hatred and the need for terrorism." Sporting a beard and Muslim dress, Gaubatz said he went on May 18 to the...

TO THE FAMILY OF THE FALLS CHURCH: If you read the local paper, you know that there have been regular articles featuring the group of TFC parishioners who felt they could not go along with our decision to sever our ties with The Episcopal Church. You might be interested in my most recent letter to Bill Fetsch regarding the request they made of me to have use of the Historic Church, several classrooms and fellowship space for a portion of Sunday mornings. I've attached that letter. As you probab ly know, at a recent Tanzanian gathering of all Anglican primates,...

One of the things that makes Titusonenine the amazing blog that it is, is our amazing commenters. One of our Virginia readers, William Sulik, has compiled a great list of links with background and various legal precedents that may be of interest to those following the developing legal battle in the Diocese of Virginia. This is posted in the comments below, but at Kendall’s request, we’re highlighting it here on the main blog As mentioned yesterday, here is my “Compendium of Posts regarding the Law in Virginia.” ¶ Set forth below, is a collection of the most relevant posts, in...