Church - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition church

Definition :

Church, includes any chapel or other building generally used for public Christian worship. (Christian Marriage Act, 1872, s. 3)

--The Church of England is a distinct branch of Christ's Church, and is also an institution of the State (see the first clause of Magna Carta), of which the sovereign is the supreme head by Act of Parliament (1 Eliz. c. 1), but in what sense is not agreed. According to Sir Wiliam Anson, the sovereign is head of the Church, 'not for the purpose of discharging and spiritual function, but because the Church is the National Church, and as such is built into the fabric of the State' (Law and Custom of the Constitution). 'The establishment of the Churchby law,' says Lord Selborne, 'consists essentially in the incorporation of the law of the Church into that of the realm, as a branch of the general law of the realm, though limited as to the causes to which, and the persons to whom it applies; in the public recognition of its Courts and Judges, as having proper legal jurisdiction; and in the enforcement of the sentences of those Courts, when duly pronounced according to law, by the civil power' (A Defence of the Church of England against Disestablishment, by Roundell, Earl of Selborne, 5th Edn., p. 10). These words 'established by law,' as applied to the Church of England, do not mean that the Church was founded, or set up, or moulded into its actual form, by the Stae; but, that the temporal legislature has recognized and added certain sanctions to the institutions and laws of the Church. One of the leading senses of the word 'establish' is 'to settle in any privilege or possession, to confirm'; and of the word 'establishment,' 'confirmation of something already done, ratification'; and the use of these words, with reference to the church of England, in Acts of Parliament and other public documents, has always been according to that sense (ibid. p. 69). The standard of doctrine and practice is settled by the Thirty-nine Articles (see Articles OF RELIGION) agreed on by convocation in Londin in 1562, and confirmed by 13 Eliz. c. 12, in 1571; by the 141 Canons of 1603 agreed upon by the convocations of Canterbury and York, and ratified by James I.; and by the Prayer Book presented by those convocations to Charles II., and ratified in 1662 by the Act of Uniformity, 14 Car. 2, c. 4, but the State has in various ways acknowledged the existence of non-conforming bodies. See WELSH CHURCH; CLERGY; DISSENTERS.'Consult Cripp's Law of the Church and Clergy; Phillimore's Ecclesiastical Law;Chitty's Statutes, tit. 'Church and Clergy'; and Lely's Church of England Position, as appearing from Statutes, Articles, Canons, Rubrics, and Judicial Decisions.