N.Y. Religious Corporations Law § 17-a: Property of extinct Seventh Day Baptist churches and Seventh Day Baptist religious societies

§ 17-a. Property of extinct Seventh Day Baptist churches and Seventh

Day Baptist religious societies. 1. All property, both personal and

real, belonging to or held in trust for any Seventh Day Baptist church

or any Seventh Day Baptist religious society that has or shall become

extinct shall vest in and become the property of the Seventh Day Baptist

missionary society and its successors and assigns; provided that this

section shall not affect the reversionary interest of any person or

corporation in said property or any valid lien thereon.

2. Any Seventh Day Baptist church or any Seventh Day Baptist religious

society in this state which has ceased or failed, or which shall cease

or fail, to maintain religious worship or services, or to use its

property for religious worship or services, according to the tenets,

usages and customs of Seventh Day Baptist churches which are members of

the Seventh Day Baptist general conference, for the space of two

consecutive years immediately prior to application to the supreme court

of the state for an order dissolving said church or society as herein

provided, or whose membership has so diminished or shall so diminish in

numbers or in financial strength as to render it impossible or

impracticable for such church or society to maintain religious worship

or services or to protect its property from exposure to waste or

dilapidation, or to fulfill the purpose for which it was incorporated,

shall be deemed and taken to be extinct, and may, by order of the

supreme court of the state, be so declared and thereupon dissolved, and

the property of such church or society may, by said order, be

transferred to, and the title and possession thereof vested in, said

Seventh Day Baptist missionary society.

3. An application for such an order and disposition of property may be

made by any member, trustee, or officer of said Seventh Day Baptist

missionary society, or any member of such church or society, when duly

authorized thereto by the board of trustees of said Seventh Day Baptist

missionary society, upon a verified petition setting forth the facts

authorizing such order and disposition of property. Upon the

presentation of such petition to the supreme court of the state, such

court may proceed in a summary manner after such notice as the court may

prescribe, to inquire into the merits of such application, and if, upon

examination by the court, it shall satisfactorily appear that the making

of the order and the disposition of property applied for is necessary

and proper, for any of the causes mentioned in subdivision two of this

section, such court shall make a final order declaring such church or

society extinct and dissolving the same and transferring any property

and the title and possession thereof, which may belong to such church or

society, to and vesting the same in said Seventh Day Baptist missionary

society, it being the purpose and intent of this section to preserve to

the Seventh Day Baptist denomination all property owned by or held in

trust for any such church or society for religious purposes.