§ 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, eighteen hundred and twenty-eight, if such provision is inconsistent with or in derogation of any of […]
§ 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 meeting of a church corporation for any such purpose shall be called, held, moderated, conducted, governed and notice of such meeting given and person to preside […]
§ 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 church, in any other manner or by any other authority than in the manner and by the authority provided in the laws, regulations, practice, discipline, rules and […]
§ 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 any other religious corporation having a congregational form of government.
§ 28. Electronic meetings. Notwithstanding any provision of law, certificate of incorporation or by-laws to the contrary, if the board of trustees of a religious corporation is authorized to determine the place of trustee meetings, corporate meetings, congregant or membership meetings, the board of trustees may, in its sole discretion, determine that the meeting shall […]
§ 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 […]
§ 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 securities which are lawful for the investment of trust funds.
§ 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 ministers, their wives, husbands and dependent children and for the poor, or property for […]
§ 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 lots in any cemetery connected with it, as may be conveyed or devised to it, with 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 the conveyance vested in the grantee and its successors a fee simple absolute in the premises therein described, subject to the limitations and […]
§ 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 heirs-at-law or devisees, subject, however, to the following limitations and conditions: If he leaves a widow and children, they shall have in common the possession, […]
§ 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 following circumstances: (a)(i) If the records of the corporation demonstrate that the lot, plot or part thereof […]
§ 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 it, or when such church corporation is situated within or outside […]
