The petitioner’s husband was born into the Jewish faith, and grew up celebrating its customs and traditions. He was subsequently attracted to the Quaker faith; and during his final illness concluded that he wished to have a Christian funeral and be interred in the churchyard. The petitioner wished to introduce a memorial stone with a depiction of the Star of David as an expression of his Jewish descent and heritage.

The court considered whether the symbol was permitted under the diocesan Churchyard Regulations; and if not, whether it should neverthless be permitted by faculty. The Regulations permitted only the use, without faculty, of inscriptions with ‘… a clear Christian or traditional funerary symbolism or reflect[ing] the life and work of the deceased …’. Religious symbols would normally be taken to be a representation of the deceased’s faith, and so such symbols other than the cross were therefore generally inappropriate, particularly where they will be taken to be declaring the deceased’s non-Christian faith whatever the family’s actual motivation for wanting them and even where the deceased’s actual faith was not the one apparently designated by the symbol.

The court distinguished this case from Re All Saints and St Andrews, Hornington with Sapiston [2017] ECC SEI 3. In that case, the petition related to an existing, standard-pattern CWG memorial to an airman who was, much later, identified to be Jewish. A petition was granted to remove the engraved cross and replace it with a Star of David.

The circumstances of the present case were not sufficiently exceptional to diverge from the general rule. The petition was dismissed.