The Church of England and “Festival Churches”: update

In an earlier guest post Trevor Cooper, Chairman of the Council of The Ecclesiological Society, suggested a taxonomy for buildings designated as “Festival Churches” – a concept designed to address the position of Church of England churches threatened with closure This further post by Trevor addresses some of the legislative measures involved…

**********

Following my earlier post, the Church of England published Association of Festival Churches, in which it explained:

“Recent legal changes and forthcoming changes to Canon B 14A mean that a Festival Church can remain legally ‘open’ as a parish church and place of regular worship, while embracing this flexibility [of being a Festival Church]. Previously a parish church had to have its legal status changed by a closure scheme to be able to do this, which was unnecessarily expensive and complicated, and could cause pastoral harm.” Continue reading