The Revd Stephen Trott has tabled a Private Member’s Motion at General Synod, as follows:

“CIVIL PRELIMINARIES TO MARRIAGE IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND

The Revd Stephen Trott (Peterborough) to move:

“That this Synod, noting the Registration of Marriages Regulations 2015 and the growing burden and complexity of the legal requirements imposed on members of the clergy who conduct weddings in the Church of England, invite the Archbishops’ Council to bring forward draft legislation to replace ecclesiastical preliminaries to marriage by universal civil preliminaries, such as those which have been in operation in Scotland … when banns were replaced by a Marriage Schedule issued by the civil registrar.”

He has raised the issue before. In a letter to the then Clerk to Synod in 2010, he pointed out that the genesis of the banns system was the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 and suggested that it had outlived its usefulness. Continue reading →