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The Diocese of Orange renamed the church Christ Cathedral earlier this month and plans to turn the Protestant landmark where the "Hour of Power" TV ministry is based into its spiritual and administrative headquarters. The fast-growing, 1.2 million-person diocese bought the church campus for nearly $58 million last year.

The upcoming transition has been an emotional one for many longtime congregants like Rommel, who watched Schuller's blockbuster dynasty struggle to survive in recent years amid declining donations, a disastrous leadership transition and an endless family squabble that split the congregation.

Schuller built the church — an architectural marvel with 10,000 windows and room for nearly 3,000 worshippers and 1,000 musicians — in 1980, a decade after he began broadcasting his sermons on the "power of possibility thinking" into the homes of millions of evangelical Christians each Sunday.

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