Kedroff et al. v. Saint Nicholas Cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Church in North America (344 U.S. 94)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided November 24, 1952 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 344 U.S. 94 · 73 S. Ct. 143
- Docket
- No. 3
- Argued
- February 1, 1952; reargued October 14, 1952
- Decided
- November 24, 1952
- Term
- October Term 1952
- Vote
- 8–1
- Majority author
- Justice Reed
- Issue area
- First Amendment
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
- Constitutional ruling
- State/territorial law held unconstitutional
How the Justices voted
- Majority
- Chief Justice Vinson, Justice Minton, Justice Clark, Justice Burton, Justice Douglas (joined a concurrence), Justice Reed (wrote)
- Concurring in the judgment
- Justice Frankfurter (wrote), Justice Black (wrote)
- Dissenting
- Justice R. H. Jackson (wrote)
Opinion excerpt
Mr. Justice Reed delivered the opinion of the Court. The right to the use and occupancy of a church in the city of New York is in dispute. The right to such use is claimed by appellee, a corporation created in 1925 by an act of the Legislature of New York, Laws of New York 1925, c. 463, for the purpose of acquiring a cathedral for the Russian Orthodox Church in North America as a central place of worship and residence of the ruling archbishop “in accordance with the doctrine, discipline and worship of the Holy Apostolic Catholic Church of Eastern Confession as taught by the holy scriptures, holy tradition, seven oecumenical councils and holy fathers of that church.” The corporate right is sought to be enforced so that the head of the American churches, religiously affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church, may occupy the Cathedral. At the present time that head is the Metropolitan of All America and Canada, the Archbishop of New York, Leonty, who like his predecessors was elected to his ecclesiastical office by a sobor of the American churches. That claimed right of the corporation to use and occupancy for the archbishop chosen by the American churches is opposed by appellants who are in possession. Benjamin Fedchenkoff bases his right on an appointment in 1934 by the Supreme Church Authority of the Russian Orthodox Church, to wit, the Patriarch locum tenens of Moscow and…
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