N.Y. Religious Corporations Law § 3: Filing and recording certificates of incorporation of religious corporations

§ 3. Filing and recording certificates of incorporation of religious

corporations. The certificate of incorporation of a religious

corporation shall be acknowledged or proved before an officer authorized

to take the acknowledgment or proof of deeds or conveyances of real

estate, to be recorded in the county in which the principal office or

place of worship of said corporation is or is intended to be situated,

and shall be filed and recorded in the office of the clerk of said

county. If there is not, or is not intended to be, any such office or

place of worship, the certificate shall be filed and recorded in the

office of the secretary of state. Where a religious corporation removes

to another county within the state a duplicate copy of its certificate

of incorporation together with a statement of such removal duly signed

and acknowledged by the directors and officers of said corporation may

be filed in the office of the clerk of said county to which it has

removed.

The recording of any certificate of a religious corporation organized

under provisions of "An act to provide for the incorporation of

religious societies," passed April fifth, eighteen hundred and thirteen,

and of the acts amending the same, in the office of a clerk of a county

prior to the passage of chapter thirty-five of the laws of eighteen

hundred and ninety-seven, instead of in the office of the register of

such county, shall be regarded and construed and such recording is

hereby declared to be of the same validity, force and effect as would

have been the recording of such certificate in the proper office. And

every act, deed, matter and thing done or performed by every such

religious society or corporation since the recording of its certificate

in the office of said county clerk is hereby ratified, confirmed and

declared to be as valid in all respects as if the said certificate had

been properly and appropriately recorded in the office of the register

of the county in which said religious society or corporation was

organized; but this section shall not affect any suit or proceeding

already commenced arising out of such original mistake.