The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Justin Welby, who was enthroned at Canterbury Cathedral on 21 March 2013. Welby is the 105th in a line which goes back more than 1400 years to Augustine of Canterbury, the "Apostle to the English", sent from Rome in the year 597. Welby succeeded Rowan Williams.
Canon law is a set of ordinances and regulations made by ecclesiastical authority for the government of a Christian organization or church and its members. It is the internal ecclesiastical law, or operational policy, governing the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches, and the individual national churches within the Anglican Communion. The way that such church law is legislated, interpreted and at times adjudicated varies widely among these four bodies of churches. In all three traditions, a canon was originally a rule adopted by a church council; these canons formed the foundation of canon law.
A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or more curates, and who operates from a parish church. Historically, a parish often covered the same geographical area as a manor. Its association with the parish church remains paramount.
In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop.
The Church of Nigeria is the Anglican church in Nigeria. It is the second-largest province in the Anglican Communion, as measured by baptised membership, after the Church of England. As of 2016 it gives its membership as "over 18 million", out of a total Nigerian population of 190 million. It is "effectively the largest province in the Communion." As measured by active membership, the Church of Nigeria has nearly 2 million active baptised members. According to a study published by Cambridge University Press in the Journal of Anglican Studies, there are between 4.94 and 11.74 million Anglicans in Nigeria. The Church of Nigeria is the largest Anglican province on the continent of Africa, accounting for 41.7% of Anglicans in Sub-Saharan Africa, and is "probably the first [largest within the Anglican Communion] in terms of active members."
A consistory court is a type of ecclesiastical court, especially within the Church of England where they were originally established pursuant to a charter of King William the Conqueror, and still exist today, although since about the middle of the 19th century consistory courts have lost much of their subject-matter jurisdiction. Each diocese in the Church of England has a consistory court.
In Christian churches with episcopal polity, the rank of metropolitan bishop, or simply metropolitan, pertains to the diocesan bishop or archbishop of a metropolis.
In Catholic canon law, an interdict is an ecclesiastical censure, or ban that prohibits persons, certain active Church individuals or groups from participating in certain rites, or that the rites and services of the church are banished from having validity in certain territories for a limited or extended time.
A canon is a member of certain bodies in subject to an ecclesiastical rule.
The Anglican Communion does not have a centralised canon law of its own, unlike the canon law of the Catholic Church. Each of the autonomous member churches of the communion, however, does have a canonical system. Some, such as the Church of England, has an ancient, highly developed canon law while others, such as the Episcopal Church in the United States have more recently developed canonical systems originally based on the English canon law.
The Anglican ministry is both the leadership and agency of Christian service in the Anglican Communion. "Ministry" commonly refers to the office of ordained clergy: the threefold order of bishops, priests and deacons. More accurately, Anglican ministry includes many laypeople who devote themselves to the ministry of the church, either individually or in lower/assisting offices such as lector, acolyte, sub-deacon, Eucharistic minister, cantor, musicians, parish secretary or assistant, warden, vestry member, etc. Ultimately, all baptized members of the church are considered to partake in the ministry of the Body of Christ.
The General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada is the chief governing and legislative body of the Anglican Church of Canada (ACC), the sole Canadian representative of the Anglican Communion. The first General Synod session was held in Toronto in 1893, with the proviso that the parameters of its authority would not undermine the local independence of dioceses.
The Anglican Communion does not have a centralised canon law of its own, unlike the canon law of the Catholic Church. Each of the autonomous member churches of the communion, however, does have a canonical system. Some, such as the Church of England, has an ancient, highly developed canon law while others, such as the Episcopal Church in the United States have more recently developed canonical systems originally based on the English canon law.
The Church of England, like the other autonomous member churches of the Anglican Communion, has its own system of canon law.
Sarah Rosamund Irvine Foot is an English Anglican priest and early medieval historian, currently serving as Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History at the University of Oxford.
John Denver Faris is an American Chorbishop of the Syriac Maronite Church of Antioch, serving the Maronite Catholic Eparchy of Saint Maron of Brooklyn, headquartered in Brooklyn, New York. He is a canon lawyer of the Eastern Catholic Church, and an expert called upon for dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Christian Churches.
Richard Cosin was an English jurist. He became prominent as an ecclesiastical lawyer in the service of Archbishop John Whitgift, active against the Puritans in the Church of England.
Graham Kings is an English Church of England bishop, theologian and poet. In retirement in Cambridge, having served as Bishop of Sherborne and then Mission Theologian in the Anglican Communion, he is an Honorary Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Ely and Research Associate at the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide, which he founded in 1996. His latest books are: Nourishing Connections , Nourishing Mission: Theological Settings , Exchange of Gifts: The Vision of Simon Barrington-Ward , edited with Ian Randall.
Jane Elizabeth Steen is a British Church of England bishop. Since June 2021, she has served as the Bishop of Lynn, a suffragan bishop in the Diocese of Norwich. Previously, from 2013 to 2021, she served as Archdeacon of Southwark; and before that, from 2005 to 2013, she served as Canon Chancellor of Southwark Cathedral, and also as Director of Ministerial Education and Canon Theologian for the Diocese of Southwark.
William Fleshmonger(? -1541/42), the son of a Winchester College tenant, was born in Hambledon, Hampshire. He was a Doctor of Canon Law and Dean of Chichester during the turmoil of the English Reformation.
