§ 126.003.Qualifications

Qualifications, and the rule differs depending on who is appointed.

A person appointed receiver need not be a member of an active religious congregation of like faith.

That is a practical concession. A receivership calls for someone who can manage and sell property, and requiring shared faith would narrow the field for no administrative gain — particularly where the congregation’s tradition has no other body nearby.

An organization appointed as receiver must be a recognized organization of like faith.

The contrast is deliberate. An individual receiver is an administrator; an organization receiver stands in the congregation’s place, and the property is to be used for a congregation of like faith. Putting it in the hands of an unrelated body would defeat that.

Subsection (b) supplies the natural candidate. Where the organization of like faith has a state society or an organization similarly formed and named that is authorized to act as receiver or trustee, the court may appoint it.

The verb is "may", so this is an option rather than a preference the court must follow.

The condition that the body be authorized to act as receiver or trustee matters. Many denominational organizations are not constituted to hold property for others, and the section does not force the role on them.

Read with the powers section, the design is coherent: whoever is appointed administers for the best interests of the congregation, and where the congregation cannot be revived the proceeds go to a congregation of like faith.