CHAPTER 493

An Act to amend and reenact § 57-12, as amended, of the Code of
Virginia, relating to the quantity of real and personal estate church
trustees may hold.

[H 493]

Approved March 31, 1964

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia:

1. That § 57-12, as amended, of the Code of Virginia, be amended and
reenacted as follows: ,

§ 57-12. Such trustees shall not take or hold at any one time more
than four acres of land in a city or town, nor more than seventy-five acres
outside of a city or town and within the same county; provided that the
city or town council of any city or town may by ordinance authorize such
trustees to take and hold in such city or town not exceeding * twenty acres
of land at any one time if such acreage is to be devoted exclusively, and is
subsequently so devoted, to a church building, chapel, offices exclusively
used for administrative purposes of the church, a Sunday-school building
and playgrounds therefor, and parking lots for the convenience of those
attending any of the foregoing, and a church manse, parsonage or rectory;
and provided further that the trustees of a church diocese may take or hold
not more than seventy-five acres in any one county at any one time; and
they shall not take nor hold at any one time, money, securities or other per-
sonal estate exceeding in the aggregate, exclusive of the books and furni-
ture aforesaid, the sum of two million dollars; provided, that where two
or more religious congregations, churches, or religious societies shall merge
or consolidate, such religious congregation, church or religious society so
merged or consolidated, shall have three years’ time within which to dis-
pose of its land in excess of that which it is permitted to hold under this
section.

Nothing herein contained shall affect the validity of any land within
a city or town legally acquired by a church to be exclusively used for a
church manse, parsonage or rectory between June thirtieth, nineteen hun-
dred fifty-four and June twenty-seventh, nineteen hundred * sixty-four,
provided the total amount of land owned by a church within a city or
town does not exceed * twenty acres.