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The future of liturgy and law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2025

Robert Atwell
Robert Atwell*
Affiliation:
Sometime Bishop of Exeter and Former Chair of the Liturgical Commission
*
Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

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Keywords

Church of Englandclergy disciplineliturgyPrayers of Love and Faithreform
Type
Comment
Information
Ecclesiastical Law Journal , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , January 2025 , pp. 72 - 82
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Copyright
© Ecclesiastical Law Society 2025

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References

1 The Prayers of Love and Faith are offered as resources in praying with and for a same-sex couple who love one another and who wish to give thanks for and mark that love in faith before God: see further <https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2023-12/prayers-of-love-and-faith.pdf>, accessed 19 September 2024.

2 N Patterson, ‘The origins of liturgical lawlessness’ (2025) 27 Ecc LJ 59–66.

3 See Luff, A (ed), Strengthen for Service: 100 Years of the English Hymnal 1906–2006 (Canterbury, 2005).Google Scholar

4 Ibid, 243.

5 Smith, J, You Are What You Love (Michigan, 2016), .Google Scholar

6 Eliot, T S, ‘Four Quartets’, Burnt Norton (1936), p.Google Scholar

7 Living in Love and Faith in Reconciliation, GS 2346, 9–11, available at: <https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2024-02/gs-2346-llf-synod-paper-feb-2024.pdf>, accessed 3 October 2024.

8 cf. Schedule 2 to the Synodical Government Measure 1969. Article 7 of the Constitution of the General Synod touches on ‘doctrinal formulae or the services or ceremonies of the Church of England or the administration of the sacraments or sacred rites thereof’, and Article 8 refers to ‘Measure or Canon providing for permanent changes in the Services of Baptism or Holy Communion or in the Ordinal’. Only Article 8 business requires approval by the majority of diocesan synods at a point in the process agreed by the Archbishops: see Article 8(1).

9 See further: <https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_ddf_doc_20231218_fiducia-supplicans_en.html>, accessed 19 September 2024.

10 ‘Church organisations urge Bishops not to commend blessings for same-sex couples’, Church Times, 5 July 2024: see <https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2023/7-july/news/uk/church-organisations-urge-bishops-not-to-commend-blessings-for-same-sex-couples>, accessed 19 September 2024.

11 Prayers of Love and Faith (note 1), 3–4. Emphasis added.

12 Ibid, 4.

13 The consultation of General Synod on non-controversial material for proposed commendation (which had taken place prior to 1985) has gradually fallen by the wayside and by the last decade has not routinely been undertaken.

14 See further N Patterson, ‘All Mouth and No Trousers? Observations Arising from the Decision on Jurisdiction in Re Evans’ (2023) 24 Ecc LJ 52, at 56–57.

15 Smith (note 5), 21.