A proposal to allow a Mt. Lebanon congregation to depart the Presbyterian Church (USA) but keep its property was discussed at Pittsburgh Presbytery yesterday.

No vote will be taken until October on Beverly Heights Presbyterian Church, which in April voted 195-4 to join the more conservative Evangelical Presbyterian Church.

The 230 commissioners, meeting at a church camp in Slippery Rock, were divided. The proposal, agreed to by congregational leaders and a negotiating committee of the presbytery, would allow the church to keep its assets, including $1.16 million in real estate, in return for a $250,000 "mission gift" to the presbytery, paid over 10 years.

In an unrelated matter, presbytery officials said they had fallen victim to a "phishing" scam, in which thieves stole $85,000.

According to Jeff Walley, the business administrator, a staff member obeyed what appeared to be a legitimate e-mail from National City Bank, asking them to log into accounts there while the bank upgraded its transfer system. After this was done, he said, withdrawals from unauthorized computers worldwide totaled $85,000. The FBI is investigating, and insurance will reimburse $10,000.

Mr. Walley said the presbytery and National City have tightened their controls. He also said he believed that the withdrawals were so abnormal that the bank should have flagged them. The bank, he said, won't reimburse the money for their business account as it would for an individual account. Presbytery officials are looking at whether they have legal grounds to recover the money from the bank.

"We have not received a definitive response from our attorney about whether we are the only ones responsible," he said.

"I hope we have enhanced our system such that it will never happen again."

Bill Eiler, a spokesman for National City, said he could not discuss specifics, but that the bank's system upgrades normally take place without incident.

"National City would cover any loss incurred by any customer as a result of a system upgrade," he said.

Yesterday's focus was on Beverly Heights. Its pastor, the Rev. Rick Wolling, spoke about why the church voted to leave.

Since its founding in 1929, he said, "we have been an admittedly, unabashedly conservative and evangelical congregation in a denomination that is admittedly and unabashedly more theologically progressive."

There were objections to the proposed agreement from liberal and conservative commissioners. Several pastors objected that Beverly Heights wasn't explicitly required to make up $78,000 in unpaid "per capita" that it had declined to give the presbytery in protest of national church policies. Others said that Beverly Heights had never violated any church teachings and that it was wrong to make it pay $250,000.

The Rev. Stuart Broberg, chairman of the presbytery council, responded that some monetary exchange was required to satisfy a property clause in the denomination's constitution. Because denominational courts have ruled that no congregation can be forced to pay per capita, any mention of that could lead to the entire agreement being overturned, he said.

The agreement required more than 100 hours of negotiation and review by people on all sides who were committed to handling the dispute in a Christian manner, he said.