Church's ownership still unsettled

Taipei City Councilor Lee Ching-yuan (李慶元) yesterday asked the Taipei City Government in conjunction with the central government to decide who should continue to own and run a Presbyterian church in downtown Taipei.

The city's Bureau of Cultural Affairs said that it will try to arrange a meeting with the central government to discuss the matter within a week.

The church, which was designated as a municipal historical site in 1998, is legally owned by the central government but has in the past been managed by the Chinan Presbyterian Church (濟南長老教會).

Lee, of the New Party, made the request during an inspection trip to the site yesterday morning in response to a complaint from Chang Ming-ko (張銘科), one of the tenants who has been living in the Sunday-school building for over five years.

Built in 1916 by a Taiwanese Presbyterian during the Japanese colonial era, the church consists of one red-brick gothic building and a two-story structure which used to serve as a Sunday school.

Chang claimed that he, along with six other tenants, were forced to move out of the Sunday school building on June 15 which they had leased from a man they believed to be the owner, Weng Chieh-tun (翁節敦).

"The church doesn't have the right to make us leave because it' s not the owner of the house," Chang said.

Joseph Lin (林永頌), attorney at law and one of the church elders, however, disagreed.

"Weng has asked us to take care of the matter because he has agreed to transfer the ownership to us," he said.

According to Lin, Weng, a Christian mainlander, occupied the Sunday school building after he relocated to Taiwan with the KMT after the nationalists lost the to the communists in 1949.

While Weng leased out the place to different people, the church was forced to hold its Sunday schools elsewhere, Lin said.

However, Weng decided in April to return the building to the church after 50 years' of illegal possession, Lin said.

"He said that he has less and less time to manage the place since he and his family emigrated to the US some 10 years ago," Lin said.

Lee, however, said that there is still a long way to go before the church becomes the legal owner of the 22,000m2 complex, as the finance ministry's National Property Bureau (國有財產局) is the official owner.

"When the Japanese colonial era ended in 1945, the legal ownership was switched from the Japanese government to Taiwan's government. Although the church continues to be the user of the premises, it has never signed a lease contract with the bureau," Lee said.

He added that the church also violated the Cultural Heritage Preservation Law (文化資產保護法) when it failed to notify the cultural affairs bureau about the cleanup project at the Sunday school building on June 15.