Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Two rival boards of directors each claim legitimate authority over the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahdo Debre Selam Medhane Alem church in Edmonton.
   
• Applicants sought an interlocutory injunction and a declaration that they constitute the Interim Board pending resolution of the underlying oppression action.
   
• An amendment to the Originating Application to add a claim for winding up the Church was permitted despite the Respondents' objection.
   
• Whether the Court had authority to order a new interim election was contested, but no such order was made at this stage.
   
• Justice Kraus found serious issues to be tried regarding land purchases, bylaw amendments, and withheld membership records, but declined to find irreparable harm.
   
• Ultimately, the balance of convenience and lack of proven irreparable harm led to dismissal of the interim injunction application.
   

Facts of the case

This dispute concerns competing claims to control of the Board of Directors of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahdo Debre Selam Medhane Alem in Edmonton (the "Church"). Both the Applicants (led by Ermias Belachewu and others, including Head Priest Gebremariam Tefera Getnet) and the Respondents (led by Chairman Teshome Tekle) assert they are the properly elected governing board. The Church's affairs are governed by Bylaws adopted around November 13, 2014, which establish a nine-member Board — eight elected members serving three-year terms plus the Head Priest as a standing member.

Between January and July 2025, the Bylaws were amended to permit five members of a board elected in March 2022 (the "Overholding Board") to remain in office beyond their term. On May 25, 2025, this Overholding Board further amended the Bylaws to allow its five remaining members to sit for another term. Following objections from the Archbishop and Head Priest, a new nominating committee was appointed on July 6, 2025. On July 10, 2025, the Overholding Board and the former nominating committee held a meeting attended by roughly 30 people, electing three additional directors (the "Respondent Election"). That same evening, in response, the Applicants convened an emergency Zoom meeting where approximately 110 congregants purportedly elected the Applicants as the Board (the "Applicant Election").

Since July 2025, both boards have held themselves out as the legitimate governing body, causing the Church's bank accounts to be frozen, collection funds to go undeposited, clergy to go unpaid, and the Church's refugee sponsorship arrangement with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to be suspended. The Applicants filed an Originating Application on February 13, 2026, under section 25 of the Religious Societies' Land Act ("RSLA"), seeking relief available under Part 17 of the Business Corporations Act ("BCA") for oppression. Within that proceeding, they brought an Interim Application seeking a declaration that they were the Interim Board, an order lifting the suspension of the Church's Corporate Registry account, an order barring the Registrar from accepting filings from anyone but the Applicants, and an order compelling the Respondents to turn over Church records. A related Statement of Claim, filed October 29, 2025 in a separate action, arises from the same factual dispute.

Policy and legislative provisions at issue

The Originating Application invokes section 25 of the RSLA, which incorporates remedies available under Part 17 of the BCA for oppressive or unfairly prejudicial conduct. Section 242(3) of the BCA was cited as giving the Court broad discretion to make interim orders it considers fit, including — the Applicants argued — the authority to direct a new election. Section 16(1) of the RSLA requires that Bylaw amendments be passed by resolution at a meeting duly called for that purpose, while section 18 of the RSLA sets out mandatory requirements for a religious society dealing with its real property. Section 17(1)(a) and (2) of the RSLA require an incorporated congregation to maintain an up-to-date membership list at the church. Articles 30 and 11 of the Church's own Bylaws impose additional procedural requirements for amending the Bylaws. The Applicants relied on these provisions to argue that the Overholding Board's actions — including amending eligibility rules to preserve its own incumbency, purchasing two parcels of vacant land, and withholding the membership roster — were procedurally improper and oppressive.

Reasoning and analysis

Justice Kraus first allowed the Applicants to amend their Originating Application to add a claim for winding up the Church, finding no prejudice to the Respondents and noting that Alberta's Rules of Court do not prevent amendments to originating applications. On the question of whether the Court could order a new interim election, the Court found neither party had provided case law directly on point; while section 242(3) of the BCA suggested such relief was possible in principle, the Applicants had not pleaded it in their Interim Application, and granting it without proper notice to the Respondents would be unduly prejudicial. The Court therefore declined to order an election at the interlocutory stage, leaving the question for the final hearing.

Turning to the interim injunction itself, the Court applied the tripartite test from RJR-MacDonald Inc v Canada (Attorney General), 1994 CanLII 117 (SCC), requiring a serious issue to be tried, irreparable harm, and a balance of convenience favouring the injunction. The Court found the relief sought was prohibitive rather than mandatory in nature, so the lower "serious issue to be tried" threshold applied rather than the more stringent "strong prima facie case" standard. On that low threshold, the Court accepted that the legality of the Vacant Lands purchase, the refusal to provide the membership roster, and the propriety of the Bylaw amendments were all serious issues warranting trial, none being frivolous or vexatious.

However, the Applicants failed at the irreparable harm stage. The Court was not persuaded that two disrupted worship services amounted to irreparable spiritual harm, nor that declaring the Applicants the Interim Board would necessarily heal the rift within the Congregation. On the financial harm claim, the Court found that misused funds could be repaid, the suspended sponsorship agreement could be restored once governance was settled, and that the Church was not on the brink of financial ruin once its bank accounts were unfrozen. Because irreparable harm was not established, the Court did not need to resolve the balance of convenience in the Applicants' favour.

Ruling and overall outcome

The Court dismissed the Applicants' Interim Application, concluding they had not discharged their onus of establishing irreparable harm as required under the tripartite injunction test, even though it accepted that serious issues existed regarding the propriety of the Respondents' conduct. No monetary award, costs, or damages were addressed in this decision. The Court did permit the Applicants to amend their Originating Application to seek winding up of the Church, and confirmed that the question of whether an interim election could be ordered would be left to the full hearing on the merits. Justice Kraus urged the parties to consider alternative dispute resolution, such as mediation through a committee of elders contemplated in the Bylaws, noting that the Congregation remains fractured and that the eventual outcome on the merits may not resolve that division. The Originating Application will proceed to a full hearing.