CHURCH DISPUTE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 162, 11 July 1930, Page 9

CHURCH DISPUTE.

EXTRAORDINARY POSITION. BUILDING BARRICADED. CONGREGATION DETERMINED. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, June 27. Unprecedented incidents have marked the church services in the Clarendon Street, South Melbourne, Presbyterian Church during the last six months. Worshippers have been barricaded out of the church each Sunday, and last weekend the pipe organ valued at £1000 was smashed to obtain timber with which to nail up the church doors. Six months a£o it was announced to the congregation that it had been decided to amalgamate with the Dorcas Street Church, which is within a quarter of a mile of Clarendon Street, but the congregation refused to accept the verdict of the Church elders, and continued to meet in the Clarendon Street Church, holding services without an ordained minister. Each Sunday, as the congregation gathers at the Clarendon Street Church, it finds the doors and windows barred and barricaded by huge billets of wood. It generally takes an hour or two before the church is fit for occupation, and at night candles are used. The electric- light and gas have been cut off from the building by order of the trustees, but the dissenters still continue in occupation of the church. They claim that the building was dedicated to public worship, and cannot therefore be demolished so long as they worship in it. One member of the congregation asserts that he was assaulted and struck on the head with a piece of wood when he surprised three men in the act of tearing apart the church pews to, make barricades. The culminating incident in the dispute came last week-end, when, after breaking down the barricades at the door, the worshippers discovered that the wooden pipes from the organ had been used to bar the windows and doors. This organ had been installed recently at a cost of £1000 and was purchased by a self-denial effort by the congregation. The legal ownership was vested in the church trustees, and no action can be taken. * 1 Efforts are being made by the Presbyterian Assembly to patch up the differences of the parties. The congregation at'tending the Clarendon Street Church is determined, however, not to worship in, any other building but that in which it has been so persistent in attending for the last six months. It is an extraordinary position, and every move , is being followed with interest in church circles.