The Glide Foundation, which offers food for the hungry, care for the needy and freewheeling religious services at its home of 88 years in the Tenderloin, struck back Wednesday at an apparent takeover attempt by its parent organization, telling a judge that its property is held in trust for the people of San Francisco and not the United Methodist Church.

The parent church filed suit in December accusing Glide of violating the denomination’s governing rules and claiming title to all the foundation’s property, including the church building at Ellis and Taylor streets. On Wednesday, the foundation responded with a declaration of independence in the form of a countersuit.

The trust organization established by Lizzie Glide, the Methodist philanthropist who bought the land in 1929, “is a charitable trust, and the beneficiaries are the people of San Francisco,” the foundation’s lawyers said in a filing in San Francisco Superior Court. “None of the assets held by Glide are held in trust” for the United Methodist Church.

Mary Glide, a member of the foundation’s board, said Wednesday that when her great-great-grandmother laid the cornerstone for the church in 1931, she had it inscribed as “a house of prayer for all.”

Besides asking the court to declare the Glide Foundation in control of church property, the countersuit seeks damages against the parent church’s California-Nevada affiliate and its bishop, Minerva Carcaño, for refusing to appoint a pastor at Glide after the previous pastor, Jay Williams, resigned in April. Carcaño also transferred the church’s two associate pastors.

Carcaño’s office said the bishop had not yet reviewed the foundation’s court filing.

The confrontation is cultural as well as legal and financial, as illustrated in St. Louis this week at the worldwide conference of delegates of the United Methodist Church, which has 12 million members. The delegates voted narrowly Tuesday to reaffirm church policy that declares homosexuality to be “incompatible with Christian teaching,” rejects same-sex marriage and bars lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender Methodists from serving as pastors.

Enforcement of the policy is reportedly far from rigid, but it stands in contrast to the culture at Glide, personified by the Rev. Cecil Williams, who became the church’s pastor in 1966.

A year later, Williams removed the cross from the church’s sanctuary “to send a message of inclusion and love and to open his sermons and services to all,” the foundation said in its court filing.

The church building became a home of charity and social services, serving more than 750,000 free meals a year, and housing programs for the homeless, abused women and people living with AIDS. Williams presided over same-sex weddings before they were legalized, and helped to establish the choir and band featured in rollicking Sunday ceremonies that draw participants of many faiths.

Williams retired in 2000 but remains active in the church. Church membership, which had dwindled to 35 in 1966, totaled more than 13,000 at the end of 2017, the foundation said.

Carcaño, who became regional bishop in 2016, said in June that the Glide Sunday celebration was no longer a Methodist service, but now was attended mostly by people of “other faiths such as Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim and Wiccan. Atheists and agnostics comprise another segment of the Glide community.”

In its December lawsuit, the United Methodist Church declared that, “in its shameful attempt to disaffiliate from the Methodist Church, the Glide Foundation breached its solemn, irrevocable promises to honor Ms. Glide’s wishes and forever be bound by the rules and regulations of the Methodist Church.” The suit seeks a court order that all Glide property, including the church building, are held in trust for the parent church.

The countersuit took a contrary position. The foundation established by Lizzie Glide “is not a local church or an agency or institution” of the United Methodist Church, but instead an independent nonprofit with the power to manage its own property, the lawyers said.

Mary Glide, a San Mateo resident who started a children’s program at the church while working at a venture capital firm, said she and other board members are trying to make sure Glide can continue in its current mission, no matter who wins in court.

In the meantime, she said, “I believe Glide is doing exactly what Lizzie Glide intended. She was a very inclusive person.”

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@

sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko