If the vestry takes action that makes them no better than this storm-trooper bishop, then the judge will wash his hands of the lot of them.
While courts will not intervene in religious disputes, they WILL intervene in property matters.
Time for the vestry's lawyer to get off his behind and file an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order. That should have been written yesterday and served on the bishop this morning.
Of course, if the bishop took over the building and their papers, they may not have any money to pay a lawyer -- but the individual vestry members are just going to have to come up with it.
I would also be contemplating a suit against the bishop personally as well as the diocese . . . pleading for hefty damages for breach of contract, trespassing, RICO, and anything else that seemed colorable.
The vestry's lawyer needs to move in. NOW. Yesterday. I don't know what's keeping him.
Probably afraid of being called on the carpet for filing a frivolous lawsuit.
Who holds the mortgage? The "bishop".
Has it been paid? No.
Who formally, legally, holds title? The "bishop".
Is it an eviction to assert your own title? No.
Back when the Russian Orthodox Church was litigating who controlled Russian Orthodox properties in America: the church leadership in Soviet-controlled Moscow, or the church leadership that had constituted itself in America, the Supreme Court didn't work too hard to award ownership to the Soviet-controlled Russian Church.
They went for form, and did not move past it.
The lawyer is trying to find a legal grounds on which to move, and he's coming up empty-handed.
That the "bishop" violated the churches own internal canons, maybe, is something the courts will defer to the court to decide. They won't wade into the religious disputes. They'll look at who has title, formally, and who has authority, formally, and rule that way. That's the problem the lawyer has.
Now, take over the church and you've reversed the situation. You've got a bishop outside claiming possession, but a congregation inside with possession. Those in possession will only be displaced after exhaustive litigation and appeals. They will lose, eventually, but the luck may turn in the wider world and the sodomite conclave of "bishops" might have other defeats dealt unto them before the final unappealable judgment is reached.
I will be stunned if a TRO is obtained, in either direction.
Which is why the parish should take back the building.