New York Religious Corporations Law Article 2 - GENERAL PROVISIONS

• 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...
• 4 - Property of Unincorporated Society Transferred by Its Incorporation.
  All the temporalities and property of an unincorporated church, or of any unincorporated religious society, body, association or congregation, shall, on the incorporation thereof, become...
• 4-a - Age Qualifications of Voters.
  To vote at a corporate meeting of a corporation to which this chapter applies, persons, otherwise qualified to vote, shall be of full age unless...
• 5 - General Powers and Duties of Trustees of Religious Corporations.
  The trustees of every religious corporation shall have the custody and control of all the temporalities and property, real and personal, belonging to the corporation...
• 5-a - Investment of Funds.
  Subject to the discipline, rules and usages of the corporation and of the ecclesiastical governing body, if any, to which the corporation is subject and...
• 5-b - (Enacted Without Section Heading).
  5-b. Any investment of the funds of any religious corporation heretofore made by the trustees thereof shall not be deemed to have been restricted to...
• 6 - Acquisition of Property by Religious Corporations for Branch Institutions; Establishment, Maintenance and Management Thereof.
  Any religious corporation may acquire property for associate houses, church buildings, chapels, mission-houses, school-houses for Sunday or parochial schools, or dispensaries of medicine for its...
• 7 - Acquisition of Property by Religious Corporations for Cemetery Purposes; Management Thereof.
  A religious corporation may take and hold, by purchase, grant, gift or devise, real property for the purposes of a cemetery; or such lot or...
• 7-a - Deeds for Cemetery Purposes; Presumption.
  Every deed of conveyance of real property to a religious corporation used for cemetery purposes, whether heretofore or hereafter recorded, shall be presumptive evidence that...
• 8 - Lot Owners' Rights.
  Lots in such cemeteries shall be held indivisible, and upon the decease of a proprietor of such lot the title thereto shall descend to his...
• 8-a - Reacquisition of a Lot, Plot or Part Thereof by a Cemetery.
  A religious cemetery corporation may, upon application and approval by a supreme court, reacquire, resubdivide, and resell a lot, plot or part thereof under the...
• 9 - Removal of Human Remains From One Cemetery of a Religious Corporation to Another Cemetery Owned by It.
  A religious corporation, notwithstanding the restrictions contained in any conveyance or devise to it, may remove the human remains buried in a cemetery owned by...
• 10 - Acquisition of Property by Two or More Religious Corporations for a Common Parsonage.
  Two or more religious corporations may acquire such real property as may be necessary for use as a parsonage, and the right, title and interest...
• 11 - Correction and Confirmation of Conveyances to Religious Corporations.
  If, in a conveyance of real property, or in any instrument intended to operate as such, heretofore or hereafter made to a religious corporation, its...
• 12 - Sale, Mortgage and Lease of Real Property of Religious Corporations.
  1. A religious corporation shall not sell, mortgage or lease for a term exceeding five years any of its real property without applying for and...
• 13 - Consolidation or Merger of Incorporated Churches.
  Two or more incorporated churches may enter into an agreement, under their respective corporate seals, for the consolidation or merger of such corporations, setting forth...
• 14 - Judicial Investigation of Amount of Property of Religious Corporations.
  The supreme court at a special term, held in the judicial district in which the principal place of worship or of holding corporate meetings of...
• 15 - Corporations With Governing Authority Over, or Advisory Relations With, Churches or Synods, or Both.
  1. An unincorporated diocesan convention, presbytery, classes, synod unless otherwise provided, annual or biennial conference or convention, or other governing or advisory body having jurisdiction...
• 15-a - Consolidation of Incorporated Presbyteries.
  1. Two or more incorporated presbyteries may enter into an agreement for the consolidation or merger of such corporations and such corporations may be consolidated...
• 15-b - Consolidation or Merger of Incorporated Presbyterian and Lutheran Synods.
  1. (a) Presbyterian. One or more foreign religious synods and one or more domestic religious synods may merge into a single religious corporation of this...
• 16 - Property of Extinct Churches.
  Such incorporated governing body may decide that a church, parish or society in connection with it or over which it has ecclesiastical jurisdiction, has become...
• 17 - Property of Extinct Free Baptist Churches.
  The property both real and personal, belonging to or held in trust for any Free Baptist church, or Free Baptist religious society organized under the...
• 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...
• 17-b - Property of Extinct Presbyterian Churches in Connection With the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U. S. A.).
  17-b. Property of extinct Presbyterian churches in connection with the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Whenever the presbytery having jurisdiction over a particular...
• 17-c - Property of Lutheran Congregations.
  1. Congregations of the Lutheran Church in America. The synod having jurisdiction over a particular congregation of the Lutheran Church in America, may declare defunct...
• 18 - Dissolution of Religious Corporations.
  Whenever any religious corporation shall cease to act in its corporate capacity and keep up the religious services; it shall be lawful for the supreme...
• 19 - Corporations for Organizing and Maintaining Mission Churches and Sunday Schools.
  Ten or more members of two or more incorporated churches may become a corporation for the purpose of organizing and maintaining mission churches and Sunday...
• 20 - Corporations for Acquiring Parsonages for District Superintendents and Camp-Meeting Grounds.
  The district superintendent and a majority of the district stewards residing within a district erected by an annual conference of The United Methodist Church, may...
• 21 - Corporations for Acquiring Camp-Meeting Grounds for the Reformed Methodist Denomination.
  The visiting elder of a visiting elder's district, erected by an annual conference of the Reformed Methodist denomination, and three members or more in good...
• 21-a - Corporations for Acquiring Lands for Parsonage or Camp-Meeting Purposes for the Free Methodist Denomination.
  The district elder and a majority of the stewards residing in the district elder's district, elected by an annual conference of the Free Methodist Church...
• 22 - Establishing and Maintaining a Home for Aged Poor.
  An incorporated church or congregation in this state, either by itself or in conjunction with other incorporated churches or congregations, shall have power to establish...
• 23 - Powers of Churches Created by Special Laws.
  If a church be incorporated by special law, it and its trustees shall have, in addition to the powers conferred on it by such law,...
• 24 - Government of Churches Incorporated Prior to January First, Eighteen Hundred and Twenty-Eight.
  Any provision of this chapter shall not be deemed to apply to any church incorporated under any general or special law, prior to January first,...
• 25 - Pastoral Relation.
  No provision of this chapter authorizes the calling, settlement, dismissal or removal of a minister, or the fixing or changing of his salary, and a...
• 26 - Worship.
  No provision of this chapter authorizes the fixing or changing of the times, nature or order of public or social or other worship of any...
• 27 - Reservation As to Baptist Churches, Churches of the United Church of Christ and Congregational Christian Churches.
  Sections twenty-five and twenty-six are not applicable to a Baptist church, a church of the United Church of Christ, a Congregational Christian church or to...

Last modified: February 3, 2019