Following the lifting of the majority of legal restrictions in England on 19 July 2021, the Church of England revised its COVID-19 guidance and documentation; this is summarized in an earlier post. Central to the guidance was the document Opening and managing church buildings in step 4 of the Roadmap out of Lockdown, v.1 which collated the relevant parts of earlier guidance into a single document. This was further revised on 1 September with the publication of Opening and managing church buildings in step 4 of the Roadmap out of Lockdown, v.2, and on 7 September, the Church removed from its page of COVID-related guidance, the older and out-of-date documents which had been retained for reference during the first weeks of Stage 4.

This post is a personal view on the more important legal and other issues from the CofE’s revised 12-page document, and that produced by Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, Covid-19 Route Map: Step 4 Guidance. Note also Frank’s comment on recent updates from the Church in Wales, where inter alia there is a legal requirement for the wearing of masks in certain situations, as in Scotland.   Continue reading →