Several states have statutes officially giving the recognition of a corporation sole as a sovereign body.  Others states as well as other countries acknowledge this the legal principal of “comity,” or lawful courtesy. Other countries in the world acknowledge corporation sole by the legal principle of “comity,” which leads them to accept ecclesiastical societies established by foreign governments as valid entities.

Corporation Sole is free to operate regardless of geographical or political boundaries and its ability
to operate beyond the control of secular authority provides numerous advantages.

While governments typically grant the right of incorporation for groups of people, a higher authority, actually empowers a corporation sole.  Since it is essentially religious, a corporation sole
operates beyond the influence of secular institutions, such as national, state or local governments. The deeply-held faith and conviction upon which the corporation sole is based possesses the ultimate authority over the corporation sole.  The right to administer manages and regulates the affairs the assets and considerations of the corporation sole remain solely with the person controlling the corporation sole for the church.

The principal characteristic of a corporation sole is that it is vested with the privilege of perpetuity, that is, it is said to have perpetual succession.  At the original custom of the churches, the church and the parsonage are vested in the parson by the bounty of the donor, as a temporal recompense to him for the spiritual care of the people, and with the intent that the same representative should afterwards continue as remuneration for the care.  But how is this to be resulted?  The freehold is vested in the parson; and, if we suppose it vested in his natural capacity, on his death it might descend to his heir, and the heir would be liable to his debts and encumbrances. The law therefore has wisely ordained, that the parson shall never die, any more than the king by making him and his successors a corporation, which has no death.  By which means all the original rights of the parsonage are preserved entire to the successor;  for the present incumbent, and his predecessor who lived seven centuries ago, are in law one and the same person; and what was given to the one was given the other also.

The crux of this description is not that the corporation sole is composed of a single person. Rather, it is really composed of a number of persons who, one after another, hold the same office. The really crucial element of this definition is the series itself and the due order of succession.  For example the King (title) is succeeded by the Queen (title); Pope (title) John II, as a corporation sole succeeded Pope (title) John I.  Pastor (title) Tom is succeeded by Pastor (title) Stan.

Corporation sole may be formed to acquire, hold and dispose of church or religious society property for the benefit of religion, for works of charity and for public worship.  Full and Arranged Digest of Cases of the Supreme, Circuit and District Courts of the United States, under the title Corporations for Charitable and Religious Uses, states the following:  “A corporation for religious and charitable purposes, which is endowed by private sponsor, is a private eleemosynary corporation, although is  not created by a charter from the government. (Society vs. New Haven,
8 Wheat, 464 5 Cond. Rep 48)  Corporation sole is not created by the government as corporations are. Thus the government is not in control of the corporation sole.

Various courts on the federal and state level in America have issued legal opinions concerning the establishment of corporation sole.  Black’s Law Dictionary (West Publishing Co., Third Edition, 1933, pg. 440) verifies an explanation of the structure:  “A corporation sole is one consisting of one person only, and his successors in some particular station, who are incorporated by law in order to give them some legal capacities and advantages, particularly that of perpetuity, which in their natural persons they could not have had. In this sense, the sovereign in England is a sole corporation, so is a bishop, so are deans distinct from their several chapters, and so is every parson and vicar. 3 Steph. Comm. 168, 169; 2Kent, Comm. 273.  Warner vs. Beers, 23 Avend. (N.Y.) 172; Codd vs. Rathbone, 19 N.Y. 39; First Parish vs. Dunning, 7 Mass. 447; Reid Vs. Barry, 93 Fla. 849, 112 So. 846, 859…”

California Court of Appeals, Second Appellate District in the County of San Luis Obispo vs. Delmar Amherst 146 Cal. App. 3d 380 (1983) stated recently:  “The issue as defined by the trial court, “is whether the assets of a corporation sole  are the personal assets of its titular head, and thus subject to execution for his or her debts.”  The answer on the basis of legal authorities defining the corporation sole and its attributes must be, as the trial court concluded, and unequivocal “NO.”
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