Thomas Jefferson once described America's new religious freedom guarantees as a ‘fair’ and ‘novel experiment’.1 These guarantees, set out in the new American state and federal constitutions of 1776 to 1791, defied the millennium-old assumptions inherited from Western Europe: that one form of Christianity must be established in a community and that the state must protect and support it against all other forms of faith. America would no longer suffer such governmental prescriptions and proscriptions of religion, Jefferson declared. All forms of Christianity had to stand on their own feet and on an equal footing with all other religions. Their survival and growth had to turn on the cogency of their word, not the coercion of the sword, and on the faith of their members, not the force of the law.

Charles III acceded to the British throne on 8 September 2022, becoming at the same time Supreme Governor of the Church of England. This article presents an overview of the law relating to the King and the Church of England, and considers the effects of the royal supremacy today.

This study, which focuses on the Roman Catholic Church, explores the concepts of confidentiality and the right to privacy in contemporary moral and legal thought. The management of church personnel files presents the challenge of observing and maintaining confidentiality and privacy. In most cases, the information contained in personnel files of the clergy, members of religious institutes, and others holding ecclesiastical offices is confidential, which should safeguard the reputation of all persons involved. From a juridical viewpoint, the Church's innate duty to respect the dignity of the person, as well as the natural right of privacy and good name, forms the foundation of this study. Certain practices in the Church entail the collection, use, or retention of confidential information about individuals for internal purposes, the administration of justice, and the management of archives and documents in the diocesan curia. In the final analysis, the Church has the responsibility to both protect the privacy of all the faithful and to transmit the Gospel message transparently.

Over the past thirty years questions have been raised, and still remain, as to the proper scope of the sovereign's title, Defender of the Faith, in a multi-faith society. Such questions are not only politically important but are legally important, especially as they raise questions affecting the Church of England. Those questions need to be addressed before any suggested changes are actually implemented. These questions are different from those that arise in relation to the Coronation Oath Act 1688, but nonetheless are important. In spite of the uncompromising wording of that Act, changes to the oath taken by new sovereigns have historically taken place at subsequent coronations. This has led to both denials and affirmations of the legality of such changes. As similar changes are likely to take place in the future, it is important to consider whether the courts (civil or ecclesiastical) have jurisdiction to entertain challenges to the legality of the coronation itself, to the oath and to the actions of the relevant participants.

Previous articles in this Journal on the subject of the role of archdeacons have created a dichotomy, between an archdeacon's role as being primarily legal or their role being primarily pastoral. This article examines the development of the role of an archdeacon and explores what was and is actually stated about them in legislation. It becomes clear that a legal definition is insufficient, so various non-statutory roles are then explored to ascertain whether it is, instead, pastoral. This, too, is found to be unconvincing, leading to a conclusion that the function of the archdeacon in the Church of England does not have a legal definition at all, but is rather a people-facing role which has attracted legal functions to it. What is more, even the pastoral aspect of the role is ill-defined without the legally stated relationships found in other offices, leaving an archdeacon's overall function, essential as it may be, subjective and open to challenge or interpretation. The article concludes that the role is primarily defined by nothing more than a blend of both national and local customs, a feature that could potentially be a vital source of strength.

The Enabling Act 1919 provided for a new National Church Assembly able to make Measures with the same force and effect as an Act of Parliament. The 1919 Act was without question a constitutional moment with far-reaching effects; and it was about law, not morals: legalists triumphed over moralists. However, it was just one stage in a much longer trajectory of thinking about the constitution of the Church of England. This article, which started life as a lecture to the Ecclesiastical Law Society's day conference on 2 April 2022, takes the story further back – and widens it. It presents the key elements of thinking about the constitution – accidents, continuity, change – in the works of English ecclesiastical lawyers – civilians, common lawyers and clerical jurists – from the Reformation to the Act of 1919. To what extent, if at all, in their understandings of the church constitution, were our historic ecclesiastical lawyers legalists, or moralists, or both? Was the ecclesiastical constitution itself simply a legal category, or did it, and its basics, also have a moral quality? This article explores these questions in relation to: (1) the nature, sources, and purposes of the constitution of the Church of England; (2) legislative, administrative and judicial power; and (3) the rights of the individual enforceable against the decisions of ecclesiastical government. This article is based on a paper delivered to the Ecclesiastical Law Society's 2022 day conference.

This article distinguishes contested heritage on consecrated land from the wider secular contested heritage debate. The evolving property law position on contested heritage and consecrated land is analysed in the context of recent consistory court judgments including the controversial decision concerning the memorial to Tobias Rustat at Jesus College, Cambridge. The current application of the ecclesiastical exemption, the statutory guidance on contested heritage from the Church Buildings Council and the Cathedrals Fabric Commission and the Duffield framework are considered together with strong criticisms made by the Archbishops’ Commission for Racial Justice. The article suggests that because issues of contested heritage and the legacies of enslavement have not been properly considered in a timely way by the Church of England, individual consistory court cases have become focal points for wider debates beyond their remit. The article argues that the current resolution process for disputes over contested heritage is untenable in the longer term. Statutory guidance needs to be revised and the faculty process, in particular the Duffield framework, needs to be adapted to address racial justice and mission and worship. Practical advice is offered to individual religious communities seeking to consider contested heritage in their own buildings in the meantime.

This article is based on a paper delivered to the Ecclesiastical Law Society's day conference in 2022. It is a reflection on the workings of General Synod from the perspective of an author who has been a member of Synod for around 36 years. The article examines three discrete themes: (i) the problem of authority in the Church of England, (ii) the shortcomings of Synodical government, and (iii) the urgency of mission. It examines these themes by considering, among other things, the Church of England's response to a number of contemporary issues: its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, proposed reform of its governance structures, its ability to respond to issues concerning sexuality and racial justice, and the proposals for reforming the Mission and Pastoral Measure 2011, as set out in GS 2222.

There is much to address in responding to such a rich and thoughtful range of reflections as given by Bishop Pete in his article published in the previous pages of this Journal. I was asked to respond to that paper from a theological perspective as part of the Ecclesiastical Law Society's 2022 day conference, and this comment piece has been based substantially on that response. So many areas of theological relevance are raised by Bishop Pete: the nature of authority in the Church of England, the role of the bishop, the shortcomings of the synodical process and the legal framework for evangelism.

2023 marks the 800th anniversary of the death of Gerald of Wales. Scholarship to-date has focused on Gerald's extensive non-legal literature. His contribution to canon law has hitherto been neglected. However, Gerald was a canon lawyer of considerable stature. He was a student and teacher of canon law, he administered canon law and defended it against the encroachment of the royal law, and he litigated in canon law to the highest level – the papal court in Rome.

It is a great challenge to respond as a theologian to Professor Doe's magisterial survey in the article published in the previous pages of this Journal.I was asked to respond to the paper upon which that article is based from a theological perspective as part of the Ecclesiastical Law Society's 2022 day conference. Professor Doe demonstrates how, in the years between Hooker and the Church Assembly, ecclesiastical lawyers had recourse to both ethical, natural law arguments and those purely from legal or even positivistic ones. It is significant to see how frequently the Anglican theorist, Richard Hooker, is invoked throughout the article. He dates, of course, from the Reformation period when, as Harold Berman points out, a pre-Enlightenment jurisprudence still obtained which combined all three dimensions of law – the political, the moral, and the historical. In my view, what is important about Hooker is that he makes no separation between the legal and the ethical because law is divine in origin and even in God himself there is a law of his being: ‘the being of God is a kind of law to his working’ in giving his perfection to what he makes and ‘God is a law both to himself and to all other things beside’. Moreover, the ethical is only realised in what we decide to do and the laws we make. Law in Hooker is even Christological because, just as the Father begets the Logos (the Son), so the law proceeds as his continuing work in creation and history. To walk in God's ways and obey his laws is to be in union with Christ. Hooker was, of course, working out the meaning of the emerging Church of England in the Reformation Settlement, but even the pragmatic is itself participatory in the divine law and he appeals back to the natural law tradition for that reason.

Two recent decisions of the Consistory Court have dealt with faculties for the removal of what is now called ‘contested heritage’. In Re Rustat Memorial, Jesus College, Cambridge, the faculty sought by Jesus College, Cambridge was refused. In Re St Peter, Dorchester it was granted on terms. As was observed by Ruth Arlow, Chancellor of the Diocese of Salisbury, in the latter case, each such application has to be taken on its own merits:

This article provides a brief account of the historical origins and canonical status of the three modern Orthodox and Greek-Catholic churches of Ukraine: the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate, and the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church. It contains four parts. The first briefly recounts the origins of Byzantine Christianity and the fused form of state and church governance that developed in Constantinople from the 4th to the 15th centuries. The second examines the Great Schism of 1054, which cleaved Eastern and Western Christianity, sending Eastern Orthodox Christianity down the path of territory- or nation-based churches constituted by eucharistic ecclesiology; this would ultimately give rise to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate in the Slavic lands that would become Ukraine. The third part considers two modern schisms, the Little Schism of 1596, which produced the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, and the Final Schism of 2018–2019, which brought into existence the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. Drawing upon eucharistic ecclesiology, the final part offers brief concluding reflections concerning the ongoing implications of these three schisms for Orthodox Christianity in Ukraine.

The theologian Paul Avis, in his handbook for those becoming bishops in the Anglican Communion, makes scarcely any reference throughout the course of the treatise to any distinction between a diocesan and a non-diocesan bishop. At one level this is refreshing, eschewing as it does any notion of a hierarchy within the order of bishops. However, on another level it is somewhat odd, for so much of the episcopal polity and praxis articulated throughout assumes the reader is ‘becoming’ a diocesan bishop, and is, consequently, at times irrelevant to those who are ‘becoming’ a bishop in an assisting role.

On 21 April, Dominic Raab resigned as Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, to be replaced by Alex Chalk KC. On 8 May, The Times reported that the Bill of Rights Bill was to be dropped and that the Ministry of Justice had told its reporters that the new Justice Secretary had been ‘looking carefully’ at the Bill, while another Government source had described the Bill as a ‘complete mess’.

Let me begin with a methodological remark. What I can offer is a European perspective of religious freedom in an intercultural world. The horizon of this ‘Comment’ piece will be global, but the point of view is inevitably European. Only God, if he exists, can have a regard from above: our regard is always from within.

At the time of writing, work continues on a replacement for the Clergy Discipline Measure 2003 (CDM 2003). This comment explores some issues which have arisen in a recent disciplinary case – Re Evans – where, for the first time, the boundaries of the CDM jurisdiction have been considered by the tribunal. I will first identify the salient facts of the Evans case, before moving on to explore the specific issue of jurisdiction. I conclude with some observations about why this case is significant, especially for those working on the replacement to the CDM 2003.

The issue of lack of legal recognition for same-sex partnerships has come before the European Court of Human Rights yet again, but this time before the Grand Chamber.