The Legal Effect of Consecration of Land "Not Belonging to the Church of England"

• Autores: Alexander McGregor
• Localización: Ecclesiastical law journal, ISSN 0956-618X, Vol. 11, Nº. 2, 2009, págs. 194-196
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • In January 2009, this Journal published an article by Kenyon Homfray, �Sir Edward Coke gets it wrong? A brief history of consecration�, which was concerned with the historical origins of a legal concept of consecration. While it is not especially germane to the direction of Mr Homfray's argument, his statement that �[i]n England, consecration does not appear to have any recognised legal effect on any land or building not belonging to the Church of England� was somewhat surprising. It may be that he intended the expression �belonging to the Church of England� as meaning no more than �affiliated to� the Church of England or something similar. If that is all that was meant, then the statement could be accepted as more or less correct: consecration for worship according to the rites of, for example, the Roman Catholic Church would not have any effect in English law. But the words �belonging to� would naturally tend to imply ownership of the land or building in question by the Church of England, in which case some qualification is needed. It may, therefore, be helpful to set out, briefly, the extent to which consecration is recognised, and has effect, in English law.