[only1percent]

I am not sure that you're empirically correct on this point. Many Episcopal churches are corporately independent from their diocese. The really huge landowning Episcopal churches are actually in this category (I am almost certain this is the case with the downtown New York Episcopal church which owns a fair percentage of the land south of Chambers street.)

Although they are subject to the >doctrinal< authority of their bishop (and ulimately to the national body of the church), their legal property is controlled by the local board. A number of Episcopal churches, have, for instance, gone Catholic -- building and all.

When you go lower church from Episcopal, I think you'd be hard pressed to find >any< singificant property held on a district or denominational basis. It's all locally owned and controlled.

(Even with Catholic facilities, the bishop/diocese only owns diocesesan facilities. Religious orders own some of the parish buildings and elementary schools, most of the high schools, and some of the colleges. Indepednent non-profits own other high schools, some of the colleges, and so forth.)

[AnAmericanMother]

Much depends on the law of the state in which the church is located.

If I didn't think it would bore you to death, I could give you citations to quite a number of cases. To boil it down to basics, states may have nothing to do with church property disputes, or they may jump in with both feet, or (like Georgia) they take a middle ground and decide property disputes only with respect to certain churches. In GA, it makes a difference whether your church government is hierarchical, congregational, or some hybrid of the two.