The Roman Catholic diocese that won the right to buy the bankrupt Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, Calif., plans to renovate the shimmering glass structure to make it suitable for Catholic services but won't change the exterior, The Orange County Register reports.

A federal bank bankruptcy judge ruled late Thursday that the Orange diocese can buy the building for $57.5 million.

The 31-year-old glass structure, designed by architect Philip Johnson, was created by church founder Robert Schuller, who conducted services and broadcast his worldwide Hour of Power television program from there.

The cathedral fell into bankruptcy after more than four years of family and financial turmoil. The ministry is led by Schuller's daughter Sheila Schuller Coleman.

Schuller, who started his ministry in 1955 in an Orange drive-in theater, did not attend the bankruptcy hearing, but as a member of the church board, he voted in favor of selling it to the diocese.

In a letter to the court, Schuller, 85, said he could not abide the thought that Chapman University, which had tried to buy the 40-acre facility, might someday use the cathedral for non-religious purposes, the Los Angeles Times reports.

The Times reports that Coleman, Schuller's daughter, said in a statement that the decision to select the Catholic Church "breaks her heart." She said she hopes "there is still plenty of time for God to do His miracle."

Under the terms of the sale, the Crystal Cathedral ministry will be allowed to lease back the core building and church for three years when it will relocate, probably to a nearby Catholic church.

"The cathedral's administration and the board have really stripped us of our ministry," said congregant Bob Canfield, the Register reports. "In the end, it was all about the money. The congregants have lost their ministry."