Members of Savannah's Christ Church Episcopal are preparing for their first Sunday service back in their historic sanctuary in four years.

Congregants are returning to their downtown building after a protracted legal battle.

The wrangling went all the way to the state Supreme Court.

Justices decided last month the sanctuary belongs to the Episcopal Diocese, not a breakaway Episcopal congregation.

Diocesan spokesman Frank Logue says, after officials received the church key in a polite exchange this week, work began pressure washing and painting.

"Inside is really cleaning and repaiting, polishing up," Logue says. "The significant thing that'll be happening inside is really just replacing the HVAC system and that'll take care of some other issues."

The total cost of the cleaning and HVAC replacement could be about $150,000.

Members of the congregation that had to leave the building, who call themselves Christ Church Savannah, will meet at a nearby Presbyterian church until they find a new home.

The groups split in two-thousand-seven amid a broader schism in the Anglican communion over the ordination of gay bishops.

Tags: Savannah, Christ Church Sanctuary, GPB News, Episcopal Church, Frank Logue