A ceremony is a unified ritualistic event with a purpose, usually consisting of a number of artistic components, performed on a special occasion.
The Anglican Church of Australia, formerly known as the Church of England in Australia and Tasmania, is a Christian church in Australia and an autonomous church of the Anglican Communion. It is the second largest church in Australia after the Catholic Church. According to the 2016 census, 3.1 million Australians identify as Anglicans. As of 2016, the Anglican Church of Australia had more than 3 million nominal members and 437,880 active baptised members. For much of Australian history since the arrival of the First Fleet in January 1788, the church was the largest religious denomination. It remains today one of the largest providers of social welfare services in Australia.
Manilla is a small town in New South Wales, Australia, located on Fossickers Way 45 kilometres northwest of the regional city of Tamworth and 27 kilometres northeast of the historic village Somerton. Manilla is famous for its setting as a fishing, paragliding, and mountain biking area. The name Manilla comes from the Gamilaraay word 'Maneela', which is said to mean 'meeting of the rivers'.
Albert Watson Newton was an Australian media personality. He was a Logie Hall of Fame inductee, quadruple Gold Logie award-winning entertainer, and radio, theatre, and television personality and compere.
Lionel Keith Murphy QC was an Australian politician, barrister, and judge. He was a Senator for New South Wales from 1962 to 1975, serving as Attorney-General in the Whitlam government, and then sat on the High Court from 1975 until his death.
Double Bay is a harbourside eastern suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia 4 kilometres east of the Sydney central business district. It is the administrative centre of the local government area of the Municipality of Woollahra.
Darryl William McInnes is an Australian film and television actor and writer. He is best known for his roles as Senior Constable Nick Schultz in Blue Heelers, as Max Connors in SeaChange, and more recently as TV boss Lindsay Cunningham in The Newsreader and Dr. Roy Penrose in NCIS: Sydney.
Herbert Henry Messenger, nicknamed "Dally" and sometimes "The Master" was one of Australasia's first professional rugby footballers, recognised as one of the greatest-ever players in either code. He played for New South Wales in the first match run by the newly created New South Wales Rugby Football League, which had just split away from the established New South Wales Rugby Football Union.
Francis Xavier Costigan,, was an Australian lawyer, Royal Commissioner and social justice activist. Costigan is renowned for presiding over the Costigan Commission into organised crime.
Walter Messenger was the youngest son of Charles A. Messenger and Annie. He was an Australian rugby league footballer who played in the 1910s and into the 1920s. He was a state and national representative winger whose club career was played with Eastern Suburbs in the New South Wales Rugby Football League premiership.
In Australia, celebrants or civil celebrants are people who conduct formal ceremonies in the community, particularly weddings – which represent the main ceremony of legal import conducted by celebrants –, and for this reason are often referred to as marriage celebrants. They may also conduct extra-legal ceremonies such as naming of babies, renewal of wedding vows, funerals, divorces, becoming a teenager, changing name, significant birthdays, retirements, and other life milestones. Officiating at a marriage requires that the celebrant be an authorised marriage celebrant under Australian law, or the law where the marriage takes place, but officiating at non-legal ceremonies does not.
A marriage officiant or marriage celebrant is a person who officiates at a wedding ceremony.
Celebrancy is a profession founded in Australia in 1973 by the then Australian attorney-general Lionel Murphy. The aim of the celebrancy program was to authorise persons to officiate at secular ceremonies of substance, meaning and dignity mainly for non-church people. Up until this point legal marriages were reserved only to clergy or officers of the Births, Deaths & Marriages registry office. These appointed persons, referred to in the Marriage Act of Australia as "authorised celebrants", create & conduct weddings, funerals, namings, house dedications, coming of age and other life ceremonies for those who do not wish to be married or have other ceremonies in a church or registry office.
Mark O'Connor is an Australian poet, writer, and environmental activist. He is the author of twelve books of poetry on regions of Australia such as the Great Barrier Reef and the Blue Mountains, often collaborating with renowned nature photographers. He has also written two books on the issue of overpopulation, This Tired Brown Land (1998) and, more recently, Overloading Australia. He has been a staunch advocate of incorporating quality poetry into civil celebrant ceremonies as evidenced for them in his professional development sessions.
Charles Amos Messenger was an Australian sculler and rower.
Natasha Johns-Messenger is an Australian conceptual artist and filmmaker, who has lived and worked in New York and Melbourne. Johns-Messenger is best known for her large-scale site-determined installations that examine spatial perception and light. Her work is a process of imitation, illusion and trickery, often activated by architectural interventions and optical physics.
A civil funeral celebrant is a person who officiates at funerals which are not closely connected with religious beliefs and practises. They are analogous to civil celebrants for marriage ceremonies. Civil celebrant funerals began in Australia in 1975. As secular (civil) wedding ceremonies became accepted, first in Australia and then in other Western countries, a similar process for funerals has since been established in New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. Civil funeral celebrants are often also civil marriage ceremony celebrants.
Peter John Elliott is a retired Australian bishop of the Catholic Church who served as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Melbourne from 2007 to 2018. He is also an author, writing a number of published works that predominantly concern the celebration of Catholic liturgy.
Roger Irving Pryke was a scholar, Catholic priest, psychologist, and social activist who left an indelible impression on the Australian Catholic community and on the broader Australian community. As a priest he was a knowledgeable precursor, and later exponent, of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. As a preacher, lecturer and personal counsellor he was acknowledged as "(changing) thousands of people's lives" and influencing those thousands into "(becoming) a new kind of Catholic". As a personal guide to many, he applied the principles of psychology to the enrichment of the Christian life to great effect. His compelling social conscience led to his public involvement in issues such as apartheid in South Africa, the Vietnam War, and within the Church community, a leadership role and deep involvement, inter alia, in the reform of the Catholic Liturgy.
Remi Barclay Messenger, aka Remi Barclay & Remi Barclay Bosseau (b.1946) was a founding member of three prominent professional theatre companies in the New York City area – The Performance Group (l967–70), with Richard Schechner, Whole Theatre (1971–1990) and Voices of Earth (1988–2000), the latter two with Olympia Dukakis as a co-director. Her theatre work included years of acting, directing and teaching as well as creating workshops for a wide spectrum of institutions, schools and universities.
