An ecclesiastical court, also called court Christian or court spiritual, is any of certain non-adversarial courts conducted by church-approved officials having jurisdiction mainly in spiritual or religious matters. Historically, they interpret or apply canon law, a basis of which was the Corpus Juris Civilis of Justinian, which is also considered the source of the civil law legal tradition.
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.
A convocation is a group of people formally assembled for a special purpose, mostly ecclesiastical or academic. The Britanica dictionary defines it as "a large formal meeting of people.
An enabling act is a piece of legislation by which a legislative body grants an entity which depends on it for the delegation of the legislative body's power to take certain actions. For example, enabling acts often establish government agencies to carry out specific government policies in a modern nation. The effects of enabling acts from different times and places vary widely.
Delegated legislation or secondary legislation in the United Kingdom is law that is not enacted by a legislative assembly such as the UK Parliament, but made by a government minister, a delegated person or an authorised body under powers given to them by an Act of Parliament.
A parochial church council (PCC) is the executive committee of a Church of England parish and consists of clergy and churchwardens of the parish, together with representatives of the laity. It has its origins in the vestry committee, which looked after both religious and secular matters in a parish. It is a corporate charitable body.
A prolocutor is a chairman of some ecclesiastical assemblies in Anglicanism.
The General Synod is the tricameral deliberative and legislative organ of the Church of England. The synod was instituted in 1970, replacing the Church Assembly, and is the culmination of a process of rediscovering self-government for the Church of England that had started in the 1850s.
In the Anglican Communion, the model of government is the 'Bishop in Synod', meaning that a diocese is governed by a bishop acting with the advice and consent of representatives of the clergy and laity of the diocese. In much of the Communion the body by which this representation is achieved is called the diocesan synod.
The Convocations of Canterbury and York are the synodical assemblies of the bishops and clergy of each of the two provinces which comprise the Church of England. Their origins go back to the ecclesiastical reorganisation carried out under Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury (668–690) and the establishment of a separate northern province in 733. Until 1225 the synods were composed entirely of bishops, but during the thirteenth century more and more clergy were cited until by 1283 the membership was established as the bishops, deans, archdeacons and abbots of each province together with one proctor (representative) from each cathedral chapter and two proctors elected by the clergy of each diocese. The main purpose of the convocations was to take counsel for the well-being of the church and to approve canonical legislation, but in practice much time was spent in discussing the amount of tax to be paid to the Crown since the clergy were a separate estate of the realm and refused to be taxed in or through Parliament. Before the end of the nineteenth century, the Convocation of Canterbury, which was numerically very much larger, played the major role and the activity of the Convocation of York was often little more than giving formal approval to the decisions taken by the southern province.
The Submission of the Clergy Act 1533 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
The Church of England, like the other autonomous member churches of the Anglican Communion, has its own system of canon law - known as "Canon law of the Church of England".
The House of Clergy is the middle house in the tricameral Church of England General Synod legislature. It consists of representatives of the ordained clergy of the Church of England.
The House of Laity is the lower house in the tricameral General Synod of the Church of England legislature. They are responsible for representing the laity of the Church of England in the legislature. They are indirectly elected every 5 years by members on the Church of England's electoral roll via the representatives on the Diocesan Synods.
The Archbishops' Council is a part of the governance structures of the Church of England. Its headquarters are at Church House, Great Smith Street, London.
The Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that enables the Church of England to submit primary legislation called measures, for passage by Parliament. Measures have the same force and effect as acts of Parliament. The power to pass measures was originally granted to the Church Assembly, which was replaced by the General Synod of the Church of England in 1970 by the Synodical Government Measure 1969.
In the Church of England and other Anglican churches, a deanery synod is a synod convened by the Rural Dean and/or the Joint Lay Chair of the Deanery Synod, who is elected by the elected lay members. The Synodical Government Measure 1969 makes it a statutory body.
A Church of England measure is primary legislation that is made by the General Synod of the Church of England and approved by the Parliament of the United Kingdom under section 3 of the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919.
The Channel Islands Measure 2020 is a Church of England measure passed by the General Synod of the Church of England transferring the Deanery of Guernsey and Deanery of Jersey from Diocese of Winchester to the Diocese of Salisbury.
