Kedroff v. Saint Nicholas Cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Church in North America , 73 S. Ct. 143 ( 1952 )

Mr. Justice Jackson,

dissenting.

New York courts have decided an ordinary ejectment action involving possession of New York real estate in favor of the plaintiff, a corporation organized under the Religious Corporations Law of New York under the name “Saint Nicholas Cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Church in North America.” Admittedly, it holds, and since 1925 has held, legal title to the Cathedral property. The New York Court of Appeals decided that it also has the legal right to its possession and control.

The appellant Benjamin’s defense against this owner’s demand for possession and the basis of his claimed right to enjoy possession of property he admittedly does not own is set forth in his answer to the ejectment suit in these words: “Said premises pursuant to the above rules of the Russian Orthodox Church are held in trust for the benefit of the accredited Archbishop of the said Archdiocese, to be possessed, occupied and used by said Archbishop as his residence, as a place for holding religious services, and other purposes related to his office and as the seat and headquarters for the administration, by him, of the affairs of the Archdiocese both temporal and spiritual.” And, says the appellant Benjamin, he is that Archbishop. These allegations are denied, and they define the issues as tendered to the state courts.

I greatly oversimplify the history of this controversy to indicate its nature rather than to prove its merits. This Cathedral was incorporated and built in the era of the Czar, under the regime of a state-ridden church in a church-ridden state. The Bolshevik Revolution may have freed the state from the grip of the church, but it did not free the church from the grip of the state. It only brought to the top a new master for a captive and submissive ecclesiastical establishment. By 1945, the Moscow patriarchy had been reformed and manned under the Soviet regime and it sought to re-establish in other countries its prerevolutionary control of church property and its sway over the minds of the religious. As the Court’s opinion points out, it demanded of the Russian Church in America, among other things, that it abstain “from political activities against the U. S. S. R.” The American Cathedral group, along with others, refused submission to the representative of the Moscow Patriarch, whom it regarded as an arm of the Soviet Government. Thus, we have an ostensible religious schism with decided political overtones.

If the Fourteenth Amendment is to be interpreted to leave anything to the courts of a state to decide without our interference, I should suppose it would be claims to ownership or possession of real estate within its borders and the vexing technical questions pertaining to the creation, interpretation, termination, and enforcement of uses and trusts, even though they are for religious and charitable purposes. This controversy, I believe, is a matter for settlement by state law and not within the proper province of this Court.

I.

As I read the prevailing opinions, the Court assumes that some transfer of control has been accomplished by legislation which results in a denial of due process. This, of course, would raise a question of deprivation of property, not of liberty, while only the latter issue is raised by the parties. And it could be sustained only by a finding by us that the legislation worked a transfer rather than a confirmation of property rights. The Court of Appeals seems to have regarded the statute merely as a legislative reaffirmation of principle the Court would find to be controlling in its absence.

But this Court apparently thinks that by mere enactment of the statute the legislature invaded a field of action reserved to the judiciary. However desirable we may think a rigid separation of powers to be (and I, for one, think it is basic in the Federal Government), I do not think the Fourteenth Amendment undertakes to control distribution of powers within the states. At all events, I do not think we are warranted in holding that New York may not enact this legislation in question, which is in form and in substance an amendment of its Religious Corporations Law.

Nothing in New York law required this denomination to incorporate its Cathedral. The Religious Corporations Law of the State expressly recognizes unincorporated churches (§2) and undertakes no regulation of them or their affairs. But this denomination wanted the advantages of a corporate charter for its Cathedral, to obtain immunity from personal liability and other benefits. This statute does not interfere with religious freedom but furthers it. If they elect to come under it, the statute makes separate provision for each of many denominations with corporate controls appropriate to its own ecclesiastical order. When it sought the privilege of incorporation under the New York law applicable to its denomination, it seems to me that this Cathedral and all connected with its temporal affairs were submitted to New York law.

As a consequence of this Court’s decision in Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 4 Wheat. 518, the Constitution of New York since 1846 has authorized the legislature to create corporations by general laws and special acts, subject, however, to a reservation that all such acts “may be altered from time to time or repealed.” New York Const., Art. X, § 1. That condition becomes a part of every corporate charter subsequently granted by New York. Lord v. Equitable Life Assurance Society, 194 N. Y. 212, 87 N. E. 443; People v. Gass, 190 N. Y. 323, 83 N. E. 64; Pratt Institute v. New York, 183 N. Y. 151, 75 N. E. 1119.

What has been done here, as I see it, is to exercise this reserved power which permits the State to alter corporate controls in response to the lessons of experience. Of course, the power is not unlimited and could be so exercised as to deprive one of property without due process of law. But, I do not think we can say that a legislative application of a principle so well established in our common law as the cy-pres doctrine is beyond the powers reserved by the New York Constitution.

II.

The Court holds, however, that the State cannot exercise its reserved power to control this property without invading religious freedom, because it is a Cathedral and devoted to religious uses. I forbear discussion of the extent to which restraints imposed upon Congress by the First Amendment are transferred against the State by the Fourteenth Amendment beyond saying that I consider that the same differences which apply to freedom of speech and press (see dissenting opinion in Beauharnais v. Illinois, 343 U. S. 250, 287) are applicable to questions of freedom of religion and of separation of church and state.

It is important to observe what New York has not done in this case. It has not held that Benjamin may not act as Archbishop or be revered as such by all who will follow him. It has not held that he may not have a Cathedral. Indeed, I think New York would agree that no one is more in need of spiritual guidance than the Soviet faction. It has only held that this cleric may not have a particular Cathedral which, under New York law, belongs to others. It has not interfered with his or anyone’s exercise of his religion. New York has not outlawed the Soviet-controlled sect nor forbidden it to exercise its authority or teach its dogma in any place whatsoever except on this piece of property owned and rightfully possessed by the Cathedral Corporation.

The fact that property is dedicated to a religious use cannot, in my opinion, justify the Court in sublimating an issue over property rights into one of deprivation of religious liberty which alone would bring in the religious guaranties of the First Amendment. I assume no one would pretend that the State cannot decide a claim of trespass, larceny, conversion, bailment or contract, where the property involved is that of a religious corporation or is put to religious use, without invading the principle of religious liberty.

Of course, possession of the property will help either side that obtains it to maintain its prestige and to continue or extend its sway over the minds and souls of the devout. So would possession of a bank account, an income-producing office building, or any other valuable property. But if both claimants are religious corporations or personalities, can not the State decide the issues that arise over ownership and possession without invading the religious freedom of one or the other of the parties?

Thus, if the American group, which owns the title to the Cathedral, had by force barred Benjamin from entering it physically, would the Court say it was an interference with religious freedom to entertain and decide his ejectment action? If state courts are to decide such controversies at all instead of leaving them to be settled by a show of force, is it constitutional to decide for only one side of the controversy and unconstitutional to decide for the other? In either case, the religious freedom of one side or the other is impaired if the temporal goods they need are withheld or taken from them.

As I have earlier pointed out, the Soviet Ecclesiast’s claim, denial of which is said to be constitutional error, is not that this New York property is impressed with a trust by virtue of New York law. The claim is that it is impressed with a trust by virtue of the rules of the Russian Orthodox Church. This Court so holds.

I shall not undertake to wallow through the complex, obscure and fragmentary details of secular and ecclesiastical history, theology, and canon law in which this case is smothered. To me, whatever the canon law is found to be and whoever is the rightful head of the Moscow patriarchate, I do not think New York law must yield to the authority of a foreign and unfriendly state masquerading as a spiritual institution. (See “The Soviet Propaganda Program,” Staff Study No. 3, Senate Subcommittee on Overseas Information Programs of the United States, 82d Cong., 2d Sess.)

I have supposed that a State of this Union was entirely free to make its own law, independently of any foreign-made law, except as the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution might require deference to the law of a sister state or the Supremacy Clause require submission to federal law. I do not see how one can spell out of the principles of separation of church and state a doctrine that a state submit property rights to settlement by canon law. If there is any relevant inference to be drawn, I should think it would be to the contrary, though I see no obstacle to the state allowing ecclesiastical law to govern in such a situation if it sees fit. I should infer that from the trend of such decisions as Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64; Klaxon Co. v. Stentor Electric Mfg. Co., 313 U. S. 487; Griffin v. McCoach, 313 U. S. 498.

The only ground pressed upon this appeal is that the judgment below violates the religious freedom guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. I find this contention so insubstantial that I would dismiss the appeal. Whether New York has arrived at the correct solution of this question is a matter on which its own judges have disagreed. But they have disagreed within the area which is committed to them for agreement or disagreement and I find nothing which warrants our invading their jurisdiction.