One United and Local Community Fight for Historic Boston Church

*The historic Charles Street AME Church’s lender argued in court today that the Roxbury congregation can’t avoid foreclosure by filing bankruptcy because it’s just an arm of the cash-rich African Methodist Episcopal movement, says the Boston Herald.

“Whose property is it anyway?” lawyer Lawrence Edelman, who represents Boston-based OneUnited Bank, asked in a hearing before U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Frank Bailey. “Very clearly, the beneficial interest in held by the greater church — the African Methodist Episcopal Church.”

The 194-year-old Charles Street congregation filed Chapter 11 in March to prevent OneUnited from seizing the church through a foreclosure auction.

Charles Street missed a $1.1 million “balloon” mortgage payment on the building in December, but has been locked in legal disputes with the bank over loans for years.

The church has proposed repaying the $1.1 million over the next three decades as part of a bankruptcy restructuring.

But OneUnited has asked Bailey to throw out the case because it believes the church is just a unit of the AME movement’s First District, which the bank claims has millions in assets.