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Financial woes with state also plague congregation

The Plain Dealer, USA
June 13, 2005
Michael Scott, Plain Dealer Reporter
www.cleveland.com

ReligionNewsBlog.com • Monday June 13, 2005

Allegations of abuse are not the only problem at the Apostolic Faith Church in Ashtabula County.

The church also is in financial trouble with the state and has been cut off from its longtime religious denomination.

The Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation has asked the Ohio attorney general’s office to collect $6,500 from the church, now known fully as the Apostolic Faith Church Body of Jesus Christ of the Newborn Assembly.

The payments are due because the church operated a business for two months before activating its BWC policy in 2004, only to cancel it a month later and claim the workers were volunteers, bureau spokesman Jeremy Jackson said.

The Miraculous Shine Detail, an auto wash and detailing service next door to the church, had an annual payroll of $64,000, Jackson said.

Church officials have said they will not comment, citing the advice of an unidentified attorney.

But officials of the Apostolic Faith Church of God, the denomination to which the Ashtabula church once belonged, have plenty to say about the church and its pastor, Charles D. Keyes.

The Rev. James Lyons of Conneaut, bishop over the 16-church denomination with congregations mostly in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia, said the denomination stripped Charles Keyes of his ministerial standing in January 2004.

Lyons took over as denominational bishop from Charles Keyes’ father, Oree Keyes, in 2004 after the elderly Keyes, 82, became sick near the end of a 20-year tenure.