17-A - Property of extinct Seventh Day Baptist churches and Seventh Day Baptist religious societies.
§ 17-a. Property of extinct Seventh Day Baptist churches and Seventh Day Baptist religious societies. 1. All property, both personal and real, belonging to or held in trust for any Seventh Day Baptist church or any Seventh Day Baptist religious society that has or shall become extinct shall vest in and become the property of the Seventh Day Baptist missionary society and its successors and assigns; provided that this section shall not affect the reversionary interest of any person or corporation in said property or any valid lien thereon. 2. Any Seventh Day Baptist church or any Seventh Day Baptist religious society in this state which has ceased or failed, or which shall cease or fail, to maintain religious worship or services, or to use its property for religious worship or services, according to the tenets, usages and customs of Seventh Day Baptist churches which are members of the Seventh Day Baptist general conference, for the space of two consecutive years immediately prior to application to the supreme court of the state for an order dissolving said church or society as herein provided, or whose membership has so diminished or shall so diminish in numbers or in financial strength as to render it impossible or impracticable for such church or society to maintain religious worship or services or to protect its property from exposure to waste or dilapidation, or to fulfill the purpose for which it was incorporated, shall be deemed and taken to be extinct, and may, by order of the supreme court of the state, be so declared and thereupon dissolved, and the property of such church or society may, by said order, be transferred to, and the title and possession thereof vested in, said Seventh Day Baptist missionary society. 3. An application for such an order and disposition of property may be made by any member, trustee, or officer of said Seventh Day Baptist missionary society, or any member of such church or society, when duly authorized thereto by the board of trustees of said Seventh Day Baptist missionary society, upon a verified petition setting forth the facts authorizing such order and disposition of property. Upon the presentation of such petition to the supreme court of the state, such court may proceed in a summary manner after such notice as the court may prescribe, to inquire into the merits of such application, and if, upon examination by the court, it shall satisfactorily appear that the making of the order and the disposition of property applied for is necessary and proper, for any of the causes mentioned in subdivision two of this section, such court shall make a final order declaring such church or society extinct and dissolving the same and transferring any property and the title and possession thereof, which may belong to such church or society, to and vesting the same in said Seventh Day Baptist missionary society, it being the purpose and intent of this section to preserve to the Seventh Day Baptist denomination all property owned by or held in trust for any such church or society for religious purposes.