The ecumenical movement seeks to achieve Christian unity through greater visible communion between the separated (or divided) institutional Churches of Christianity worldwide. The practice of ecumenism and ecumenical theology have developed principally at the doctrinal and theological levels. The juridical instruments of Churches have not thus far played a central role in ecumenical discourse – they are occasionally seen as the ‘missing link’ in ecumenism. This article examines for the first time, in a wide comparative compass, the treatment of ecumenism in the juridical instruments of separated Christian traditions and their institutional Churches worldwide. It proposes that these instruments should have a more prominent place in ecumenical practice and theology in so far as they tell us much about the scope of both the commitment of Churches to and their participation in the ecumenical enterprise. Juridical instruments define what ecclesial communion is possible and what is not, either enabling or restricting the development of greater visible communion between separated Churches in the quest for Christian unity. As such, this ‘juridical ecumenism’ offers both a theoretical and a practical framework for the global transformation of ecumenism to complement but not replace the current dominance of the doctrinal and theological focus in contemporary ecumenical method and practice.

In the decades that followed the close of the Second Vatican Council, great progress was made in the dialogue between the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church. During that period, the Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) was founded in 1967 by Pope Paul VI and the Archbishop of Canterbury (Michael Ramsey). The rich and common heritage shared by Anglicans and Roman Catholics found expression in the work and statements of ARCIC. In the background was the work of theologians, historians, liturgists and Scripture scholars, and many relationships were being cultivated locally in dioceses and parishes around the world. While the possible significance of Church law had been recognised in the 1974 World Council of Churches Report, Christian Unity and Church Law, there has been no sustained discussion of canon law in the work of ARCIC.

The subject of the sixth meeting of the Colloquium of Anglican and Roman Catholic Canon Lawyers in Rome 2005 was the Roman Catholic position that Anglican orders are invalid. The meeting employed a canonical framework to explore the status and terms of Apostolicae curae (1896) and the modern applicability of the canonical issues of intent, matter, form, and minister to the question of Anglican orders. The meeting did not examine pneumatological aspects of ordination. This article seeks to set alongside each other the ritual elements of the liturgy for the ordination of priests in both the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches in their respective canonical contexts. It proposes the value of a pneumatological approach for possible Roman Catholic recognition of the vitality of Anglican orders. A draft of this paper was presented to the seventh meeting of the Colloquium of Anglican and Roman Catholic Canon Lawyers in Johannesburg in February 2006, where it was favourably received.

The trial of Bishop Edward King (1829–1910) and the judgment which issued from it proved a landmark in the history of the Victorian Church of England. The judgment was also a turning point in the history of the Catholic Revival, and the bitter series of ritual disputes to which it gave rise. Edward Norman categorised the trial as ‘One of the most important, as well as one of the most extraordinary episodes in the religious history of the nineteenth century.’ R. W. Church, Dean of St Paul's, hailed the judgment as ‘The most courageous thing that has come out of Lambeth for the last 200 years.’ Others, inevitably, given the passions roused by the ritualist controversy, took a more jaundiced view; but few serious Church people were indifferent to the result.

‘The manner of appointment [of bishops] reflects the delicate balance between the established nature of the Church of England and its autonomous self-governance.’ As with most matters of Church of England ecclesiology and polity, the process of the appointment of bishops in the Church of England is firmly rooted within the reforms of the sixteenth century, but has origins which stretch back to the mediaeval Church. This comment article focuses on the appointment of diocesan bishops in the Church of England.

In its recent judgment in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v EEOC, the United States Supreme Court held that the First Amendment precludes the application of anti-discrimination law to the employment relationship between a church and its clergy. In 2005 the House of Lords had reached the opposite conclusion, ruling, in Percy v Board of National Mission of the Church of Scotland, that the decision to dismiss an ordained minister was not a spiritual matter falling outside the scope of anti-discrimination legislation. This article argues that Percy largely neglected important aspects of church autonomy and that the reasoning in Hosanna-Tabor offers an opportunity to rethink whether secular law should be allowed to affect a religious group's decision to appoint or dismiss a minister.

In the first half of the nineteenth century, Doctors' Commons enjoyed a final flowering before its eradication in the 1860s, and its leading members once again achieved a reputation for scholarship and intellectual distinction. Lord Eldon's brother, William Scott (1745–1836), Lord Stowell, undoubtedly bears a considerable part of the credit for raising the public standing of the Civilian profession. Scott was a remarkable man, and his career was not a conventional one. Fellow and Tutor of University College, Oxford, at the age of nineteen—in the very year that his neighbour Blackstone across the High became Vinerian Professor—he was called to the Bar by the Middle Temple the year after taking his D.C.L., and by 1794 was a bencher of his Inn and a distinguished ecclesiastical judge. Yet not only was Dr Scott a Civilian and a barrister, he also taught for several years at Oxford as Reader in Ancient History, and served as a member of Parliament. In law and politics, Stowell shared the conservative instincts of his brother. While professing to value the principle of religious toleration, he was strenuously opposed to Roman Catholic emancipation in Ireland, which he felt would be ‘setting fire to the country’, while in the Commons in 1815 he urged that sectarians should not be excused from contributing to the maintenance of the established Church. In a letter to Joseph Story in 1820 he explained his opposition to all manner of reform, including moderate reform; the latter he considered particularly dangerous, because a modest reform was easily made and then the violent reformers would rush into the breach.

At our annual conference next March the proposed topics for discussion are the parson's freehold and clergy discipline. Although it will necessarily touch upon the latter, this article is primarily concerned with the parson's freehold. It is an attempt to consider some of the ramifications of that freehold now that it is a subject once more to be debated by the General Synod. I do not intend to reach any conclusion as to whether or not that freehold should be abolished or, indeed, as to what should replace it if it is. Rather, I would seek to raise questions that should be considered within the legal sphere whilst that debate continues. In so doing, however, I am only certain of three things: first, that the parson's freehold cannot be considered in isolation; second, that it is essential before anything is abolished that careful stock is taken of what actually is being abolished (otherwise the consequences may be other than intended); and third, that equal care must be given to what, if anything, should replace it. Underlying all this is my own conviction that the law is a framework to regulate a society, in this instance the Church. It may be a bastion to protect the weak or it may be a tool misused by the strong but in the last analysis, once others have decided that it should be altered, the lawyer's duty is to advise and then to implement. There is nothing immutable about the ecclesiastical law.