Dennis Canon

The Dennis Canon is a common (though unofficial and unfavored) name used for Title I.7.4 (as presently numbered) of the Canons of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America (also called The Episcopal Church, or TEC).

The Canon seeks to impose a trust, in favor of the Episcopal Church, on property held by a local group of Episcopal adherents (whether a parish, mission, or ). The Canon's intended effect is to discourage a local group from withdrawing from the Episcopal Church, as under the Dennis Canon such property would revert to the Episcopal Church.

In light of the larger doctrinal controversies surrounding the Episcopal Church, and the decision of some local congregations (and dioceses) to withdraw from the Episcopal Church, the Canon has surfaced in litigation between church or diocese factions regarding ownership of property.

The Canon states:

The Dennis Canon is named after Walter Dennis, an attorney and later Suffragan Bishop of New York, who drafted the Canon. It was passed by the 66th General Convention in 1979, having been introduced by the Committee on Canons of the House of Bishops as D-024 of that Convention.

During the turbulent 1960s and 1970s, some parishes left the Episcopal Church and attempted to retain the parish property for reasons including the admission of women to Holy Orders, the adoption of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, and the belief that some bishops held heretical views.

In 1979, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Jones v. Wolf that the "neutral principles of law" approach to deciding property disputes between factions of a church offered advantages versus other means (which may have required involvement in matters of purely religious affairs, an exercise which was prohibited by the First Amendment):

The Supreme Court went on to state (in response to the dissent):

As such, the Dennis Canon was written in response to the Supreme Court's ruling, by modifying TEC's Canons in an attempt to create an express trust in favor of TEC should a faction of a local parish seek to withdraw from TEC. The Episcopal Church maintains that, legally, any officer of any official institution must maintain his or her fiduciary trust responsibility on behalf of the Episcopal Church.

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