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N.Y. RCO Law § 2

This is the official text of N.Y. RCO Law § 2, part of New York’s RCO Law — part of the compiled statutory law of New York, published by the state as "RCO Law." Browse the sections below, each linked to its official government source.

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Definitions

Official statutory text

§ 2. Definitions. A "Religious Corporations Law corporation" is a\ncorporation created for religious purposes to which this chapter applies\nunder section two-a of this chapter. Unless the context otherwise\nrequires, whenever "religious corporation" or "corporation" is used in\nthis chapter, such term shall mean a "Religious Corporations Law\ncorporation".\n An "incorporated church" is a religious corporation created to enable\nits members to meet for divine worship or other religious observances.\n An "unincorporated church" is a congregation, society, or other\nassemblage of persons who are accustomed to statedly meet for divine\nworship or other religious observances, without having been incorporated\nfor that purpose.\n The term "clergyman" and the term "minister" include a duly authorized\npastor, rector, priest, rabbi, pandit, swami, guru, granthi, imam,\nmoulvi, maulana and a person having authority from, or in accordance\nwith, the rules and regulations of the governing ecclesiastical body of\nthe denomination or order, if any, to which the church belongs, or\notherwise from the church or synagogue to preside over and direct the\nspiritual affairs of the church or synagogue.\n The term "funeral entity" means a person, partnership, corporation,\nlimited liability company or other form of business organization\nproviding funeral home services, or owning, controlling, conducting or\naffiliated with a funeral home, any subsidiary thereof or an officer,\ndirector or stockholder having a ten per centum or greater proprietary,\nbeneficial, equitable or credit interest in a funeral home.\n

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.