School is out for churches, forever.
This past Sunday, Park Slope Presbyterian Church did not hold its worship service in John Jay High School on Seventh Avenue like it has every Sunday for the past eight years. Instead, their service was held across the street at .
The reason? The city has evicted them.
As New York 1 reports, Mayor Michael Bloomberg will start enforcing a federal court decision that bans churches from renting space in public schools for religious worship.
Of the 53 churches affected citywide, nine of them are in Brooklyn. But not every place of worship has been kicked out, for the city’s policy states that no more than 50 churches are allowed to rent space in a public school for regular worship.
From now on, Park Slope Presbyterian Church will hold its services at Greenwood Baptist, which is on Seventh Avenue at the corner of Sixth Street, at 4 p.m.
The church’s pastor, Matt Brown, told NY 1 that he is frustrated about being evicted from John Jay after close to a decade of renting the space.
One worshiper echoed the pastor’s sentiment.
"It's sad I think for all us to be leaving the place where we've been for so many years," the worshiper told NY 1.
But the policy does not affect schools that are renting space in churches. According to the report, the Department of Education currently holds 34 school leases from the Catholic church.
"The thing that's amazing to me is that the Board of Ed is so worried about confusion on one point and not on another," pastor Brown told NY 1, explaining that PS 133 is in a church, which it rents from the Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens.
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