Anglican Marriage – A Guide to the Law
by Peter Ould
The third edition of this perennial favourite has just dropped through the letter boxes of Anglican clergy in England and Wales. It’s an update in the light of the new rules for who can (and still can’t) get married in a Church of England building and the recent developments with civil partnerships.
Of interest to readers of this site are two sections, 14 and 15. Section 14 deals with civil partnerships and has the following key sentences:
The existence of a civil partnership is an impediment to marriage. However, a minister may not refuse to marry a man and a woman on the basis that a party of parties has a former civil spouse still living (where the civil partnership has been dissolved) and the English House of Bishops’ Advice to the Clergy on the remarriage of divorcees does not apply.
Interesting, because the obvious conclusion is that the Church of England does not recognise civil partnership as equivalent to marriage. In case anybody was wondering…
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
