New York Consolidated Laws, Religious Corporations Law - RCO § 181. Rights, powers and limitations

Upon the filing of such certificate the persons named therein as trustees, and their successors, being citizens of the United States and residents of this state, shall be a body politic and corporate, with all the rights, powers and duties, and subject to all the restrictions and obligations and other provisions, so far as the same may be applicable and consistent with this article, specified and contained in the act entitled “An act for the incorporation of benevolent, charitable, scientific and missionary societies,” passed April twelfth, eighteen hundred and forty-eight, and the act amending the same, passed April seventh, eighteen hundred and forty-nine, except that the limitation in the first of the said acts of the value of real estate that may be held by any society in the city or county of New York, incorporated under this article, shall not be applicable to any church edifice erected or owned by such society, or the lot of ground on which the same may be built;  and except that the provision in the first of the said acts, in relation to the personal liability of the trustees, shall be applicable only to the trustees who shall have assented to the creation of any debt.