A devise of an advowson to human trustees in a will without using words of limitation takes effect, as the result of a parenthesis in section 30 of the Wills Act 1837 and of subsequent legislation, as a settlement for the lifetime of the last survivor of the original trustees; thereafter the advowson will pass to the testator’s residuary beneficiaries. The Law Commission’s Report on Wills recommends that this anomaly should not apply to wills coming into effect in the future. The existing rules will continue to govern wills made before any change in the law.

For centuries, English law discriminated against Catholics and Jews. Those rules were mostly repealed in the 19th century, but surprisingly the law still says that a Catholic or Jewish person cannot advise the King on appointments within the Church of England or Church of Scotland. Ordinarily, new Church of England bishops are nominated by the King on the advice of the Prime Minister, but a Catholic or Jewish Prime Minister could not exercise that function; it would have to devolve on another Minister of the Crown. The article analyses the impact of this rule today, and, drawing on two interviews, considers how this rule was applied when Boris Johnson was Prime Minister. The article argues that the discriminatory rule should be repealed, allowing any Prime Minister, regardless of their faith or lack thereof, to carry out their duties in full.

Today, the Chancery Court is the appeal court for the province of York in the Church of England. There are some excellent specialised period-specific studies which take in the Chancery Court alongside other York church courts, mostly from the Borthwick Institute at York.1 However, there is no book exclusively devoted to the Chancery Court setting out its full history. The court is also rather neglected in standard texts on the history of English ecclesiastical law. Even the great Richard Helmholz has no index entry on it in his monumental history of canon law in England.2 Holdsworth in his well-known history of the common law has a page and a half on courts of the Archbishop of Canterbury; as to York’s archiepiscopal courts, he simply states they ‘corresponded’ to those of Canterbury.3 These are typical of most scholars today.4 This article, therefore, seeks to redress this imbalance – to correct what seems to be a case of juridical amnesia and so to unveil the forgotten, or hidden, Chancery Court of York. It offers a short history of the identity, jurisdiction, officers, records and processes, and jurisprudence of the Chancery Court of York. It also points out some key differences between the Chancery Court and its Canterbury equivalent, the Arches Court. The article focuses mainly on its post-Reformation history, as treated in the dispersed secondary literature – and it adds to this what the English ecclesiastical lawyers since the Reformation – civilians, common lawyers, and clerical jurists – say about this York court.

This article traces the developments in the laws and guidance underpinning safeguarding practices in the Church of England over the last 30 years and critically analyses the methodologies used, and outcomes reached, in a number of Lessons Learnt Reviews (including the Makin Review).

On 2 February 1932, Alan Don, chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury Cosmo Gordan Lang, recorded in his diary the simple entry: ‘Church Assembly – not very invigorating’.1 This has been the tenor of the relationship between the English and the governing bodies of the church for centuries. This article seeks to describe the role of synodality at the regional level2 by reference to the General Synod of the Church of England, with a brief comparative study of the tikanga system in New Zealand, and asks the question whether the procedures meet the expectation of synodality.

This article examines issues that relate to synodality at the local (diocesan) level, with a particular focus on the constitutions and functions of diocesan synods in the Church of England.

This article examines the role of the parish primarily within the Church of England’s processes of synodical government. After providing an overview of the historical foundations of the parish, the article moves on to compare parish arrangements in the Church of England, the Church in Wales, and the broader Anglican Communion.

Attitude towards assisted dying was assessed among 3,230 people who took part in the Church 2024 survey. Asked to respond to the statement ‘I am in favour of allowing assisted dying’, 51% disagreed, 28% agreed and 21% were uncertain, suggesting a sizable minority were either in favour of changing the law or undecided. Those against changing the law tended to agree that it is wrong for someone to take their own life, that only God can give and take life and that the risks of abusing any process are too great. Opinion varied across various groups, with women more in favour than men, the old more in favour than the young, laity more in favour than clergy and Anglo-Catholics or Broad Church more in favour than Evangelicals. Personal and psychological disposition predicted some variations in attitude towards assisted dying, probably because they predisposed individuals to taking more general liberal or conservative stances. The patterns are similar to those seen in several different moral issues debated in the Church of England in the last three decades, suggesting assisted dying might follow a similar trajectory in years to come.

In October 2022, the Church of England commissioned a study of the likely impacts of allowing the blessing or marriage of same-sex couples in church. This paper reports on a survey of key informers (bishops or chief executive officers) in dioceses in the seven provinces of the Anglican Communion that had at that time allowed either same-sex blessings (SSB) or same-sex marriages (SSM). Of 183 provinces or dioceses contacted, 62 (31%) replied to an online survey of which 74% had decided to allow SSB and 55% to allow SSM. While all provinces reported some losses of clergy or congregations, these were not as great as some had expected. Smaller provinces that had made spaces and time for those of differing opinions to meet together tended to report more positive outcomes than those where processes were dominated by synodical debates.

Quantitative analysis using two scales of internal (church-facing) and external (society-facing) impact showed that dioceses that allowed SSM rather than just SSB reported more positive external impact. Those that had allowed SSM reported better internal and external impact compared with those who allowed only SSB or neither. Open answers offered critical reflections highlighting important lessons learnt in the process of making decisions.

Multiple instances of safeguarding failures and criticisms of poor process and weak governance have afflicted the Church of England for many years, despite repeated assurances that ‘Lessons would be learned’. An Independent Safeguarding Board has been formed and then abolished without being replaced. A report by Professor Alexis Jay, former Chair of Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, recommending the creation of two independent charities to oversee Church safeguarding has been passed to a Response Group and is being resisted by various groups within the Church. This article examines issues of the management of safeguarding within the overall governance of the organisation, compares issues within the Church with those which have been exposed by the Post Office Horizon scandal and considers the potential role of the audit function to concern itself with safeguarding matters as part of its oversight of risk management and corporate governance.

Until recently the faculty jurisdiction did not extend to trees in churchyards. This article explains how trees in churchyards became subject to that jurisdiction and explores the complicated law relating to churchyard trees.1

On 29 December 1838, the Dean of Exeter Cathedral, Whittington Landon, died. In the months that followed, the cathedral chapter repeatedly refused to elect the individuals nominated by the Crown, setting the stage for a protracted struggle that would play out in Parliament and in the Court of Queen's Bench. This is the story of R v The President and Chapter of the Cathedral Church of St Peter in Exeter.1