Chancellor, Vicar-General, Official Principal – A Bundle of Offices

Extract

The immediate reason for this paper is the imminent coming into force of the Care of Churches and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure 1991 which makes several references to ‘chancellor’ but does not specify in which of his offices the chancellor will be acting. A wider reason is that chancellors are increasingly needing to consider the capacities in which they act for such purposes as issuing practice directions and issuing instructions about the care of churches and churchyards. In the 1991 Measure, section 6(3) requires every chancellor to issue written guidance to parochial church councils (PCCs) about trees in churchyards. Section 11 (8) requires every chancellor to issue written guidance to PCCs, ministers and churchwardens as to those matters which he considers to be of such a minor nature that they may be undertaken without faculty. Section 13(6) allows a chancellor ‘of his own motion’ to issue an injunction to restrain an unlawful act or to make a restoration order if such an act has been done. Section 14 requires every chancellor to confer jurisdiction to grant faculties to archdeacons to such extent as is prescribed in rules. Section 18 provides a procedure whereby a chancellor may by instrument authorise the demolition of a church where this is necessary in the interests of safety or health without a faculty having been sought or granted. When the chancellor acts under these various sections will he do so as chancellor, as vicar-general or as official principal, or in all three capacities, and should he specify in which capacity he acts? In relation to directions or instructions given outside the authority of such a measure do similar questions arise?