“The next archbishop has to…deal with the systemic issues of dysfunction both in the institution & its central capacity, but also in the House of Bishops in terms of cultures around power, privilege & entitlement that persist.”
Rt Revd Helen-Ann Hartley, Bishop of Newcastle
A common date for Easter?
On 13 December, the Church Times published an item by Andreja Bogdanovski, Churches look towards one date for Easter, which indicated that leaders of the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox Churches were signalling their openness to setting a common date for Easter, an opportunity arising with the approaching 1700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea.
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople was cited as stating that Catholic and Orthodox believers had a “golden opportunity” to agree on a joint date for Easter because of the “fortunate alignment” of the Julian and Gregorian calendars. In 2025 all Christians will celebrate the Resurrection on the same day, as highlighted by Pope Francis last month in his address to the delegation of the Group Pasqua Together 2025.
So far as the UK is concerned, we have been here before: see the Easter Act 1928, which is still in force but which has never been commenced because it requires the Government, before making a draft commencement order, to have regard “to any opinion officially expressed by any Church or other Christian body”.
The annual conference of the Ecclesiastical Law Society for 2025, Nicaea Received: 1700 years of Canons, Councils and Ecumenism, will take place from 20 to 22 June at Chichester Cathedral and the Bishop’s Palace and Patriarch Bartholomew will give one of the keynote addresses.
The Charity Commission and the Order of Friars Minor Conventual
The Charity Commission has announced that it has launched a statutory inquiry into the Order of Friars Minor Conventual after the trustees repeatedly failed to file accounts or conduct a review of the charity’s accounting processes. The Commission exercised its powers to direct the charity to complete them as part of a double defaulter class inquiry in January 2023, and while the charity has submitted overdue accounts for the Financial Years ending December 2020 and 2021, accounts for 2022 and 2023 remain outstanding.
Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland
The King has approved the appointment of Lady Angiolini LT as HM’s Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. Lady (Elish) Angiolini, a Roman Catholic and currently Lord Clerk Register and Principal of St Hugh’s College, Oxford, was successively Solicitor General for Scotland and Lord Advocate between 2001 and 2011.
Marriage (Prohibited Degrees of Relationship) Bill
On Tuesday, Richard Holden (Con, Basildon and Billericay), was given leave under the Ten-Minute Rule to bring in a Bill “to prohibit the marriage of first cousins; and for connected purposes”. Although Iqbal Mohamed (Ind, Dewsbury and Batley) spoke in opposition to the Bill, leave was granted without a division. The Bill was set down for second reading on 17 January.
Converting marriages into civil partnerships?
On Wednesday, Baroness Anderson answered a Written Question from Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con), asking HMG “what plans they have to make an order under section 104 of the Scotland Act 1998 to enable pre-existing marriages to become civil partnerships” as follows:
“The UK Government is currently engaging with the Scottish Government and considering their proposal. We will keep Parliament informed of any developments.”
See s.4 (Power to enable marriages to become civil partnerships) of the Civil Partnership (Scotland) Act 2020, which, presumably, is not yet in force.
Quick links
- Diocese of Peterborough and Church of England: Statements regarding St Saviours Home, Northampton, acknowledging the hurt and distress that continues to be endured by those who felt they had no option but to have their children adopted or whose babies were buried in unmarked graves.
- Jan Pickles: The Caldey Island Review: on allegations of non-recent childhood sexual abuse within the monastic community of Caldey Abbey on Caldey Island, Pembrokeshire.
- Scolding Review: Actions and Recommendations: the Diocese of St Albans’ action plan in response to the Independent Review into Soul Survivor led by Fiona Scolding KC, following its initial response of 26 September 2024 – includes a series of changes to be implemented within the Diocese, alongside recommendations for the wider Church of England.
Though the Julian and Gregorian calendars “fortunately align” next year to give April 20th as the date of Easter Day, the Julian calendar will nonetheless still be thirteen days behind the Gregorian so what exactly is the opportunity being afforded to the Eastern and Western churches ?
What are the implications of “leave granted without division” for the marriage bill? Does this mean no party plans to oppose it at Second Reading?
By the by, I do wonder when we’ll stop the palimpsest approach to marriage legislation.
No: it just means that there wasn’t a division on the motion for leave. And its chances of a second reading debate are just about zero.
The great significance of the appointment of Lady Angiolini as the next Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland is that she is the first ever Catholic to be appointed to represent the Sovereign. As a Church of Scotland minister I am one of the many – the the vast majority, I would think – who welcomes this.
There are, however, some who even in this day are expressing their displeasure.