A historic African-American church in the Bronx secured a new lease on life as part of a settlement deal announced Monday that short-circuited upcoming litigation scheduled in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

The First Union Baptist Church has faced legal battles that stretched from state court to the federal appellate level over the past nine years, after foreclosure proceedings were commenced in state Supreme Court in the Bronx after the church missed a mortgage payment in 2010.