Lyndwood’s Provinciale (c. 1433) contains the ecclesiastical legislation, and a gloss on it, of the Province of Canterbury. The York Provinciale (c. 1518), issued by Wolsey, Archbishop of York, contains the legislation of that province, but with no gloss. The Canterbury Provinciale is well known, and dominates in the works of ecclesiastical lawyers and in the church courts after the Reformation. The York Provinciale is little known, and much neglected after the Reformation by the ecclesiastical lawyers, and today by historians of canon law. The two Provinciales have never been compared. What follows remedies this neglect and compares these two legal entities, in terms of ten matters, namely, their: authors; sources; purposes; internal structure; authority (the Canterbury Provinciale was never ratified legislatively, the York one was, arguably as a legatine constitution and so superior in status to Canterbury’s); geographical applicability (including York’s adoption of Canterbury’s provincial law in 1462 subject to its consistency with York law); position in historic debates; editions; use by the post-Reformation ecclesiastical lawyers; and use by modern scholars. It is time, therefore, for Canterbury’s laws to share the limelight with the York Provinciale.

This article examines the way in which the canons of Nicaea continue to form part of the living canonical tradition of the Orthodox Church. It addresses how these ancient canons should be interpreted to ensure their relevance, and application, in the contemporary Church. The article concludes by emphasising that the canonical tradition is, in fact, part of the theological reflection of the Orthodox Church.

The article explores the history of notaries and the English Church from their arrival at Canterbury in 1279 to the present. There is detailed analysis of the Reformation legislation revising the granting of notarial faculties and of the development of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Court of Faculties (‘Faculty Office’). The topic is novel, because previous studies have not focused on the relationship of notarial practice and regulation with the Church, and academic legal history of English notaries pre-dates important legislative interventions of the last 35 years. Continuity and change are assessed, particularly in the light of the Reformation and legislative reforms of the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries. These themes are examined in the context of the development and perpetuation of canon law: teaching of the ars notaria at Bologna, its dissemination in England, ecclesiastical court practice and the post-Reformation canonists. The significance of ecclesiastical notaries is considered. Following a literature review, original research included examining unpublished archive material in Lambeth Palace Library, the Faculty Office and from the professional Societies, as well as corresponding with staff of the Faculty Office and the editor of the leading practitioner’s textbook, who were instrumental in achieving reforms of the Civil Procedure Rules and shaping the Legal Services Act 2007. Comparisons are drawn with the status of notaries and the probative force of their acts in civil law jurisdictions. The constitutional position of the Faculty Office is considered in this comparative context. The study concludes that Church lawyers have made significant contributions to sustaining the existence of an independent notarial profession in England and Wales. Contemporary admission requirements, regulatory rules and professional ethics owe much to medieval and eighteenth century canonists and the leadership of successive Masters of the Faculty Office, many of whom have been senior judges in the Church of England.

Juridical ecumenism is a branch of ecclesionomology: the study of church law as a form of applied ecclesiology. It involves the comparative study of the laws and other regulatory entities of different ecclesial traditions and their institutional churches, as well as the practice of church law and ecumenism. It does not seek to replace the historic focus on theology and doctrine in ecumenical dialogue, but rather to remedy the missing legal link in the ecumenical enterprise to date, by using church laws as a rich unifying instrument for greater visible communion between separated institutional churches. One fruit of juridical ecumenism is the issue of the Statement of Principles of Christian Law by an Ecumenical Panel in 2016 and its launch at the 11th Assembly of the World Council of Churches in 2022. Marking the 1700th anniversary of the great Council of Nicaea and its Canons gives us the opportunity to think critically, as an exercise in juridical ecumenism, about continuity and change over the centuries in the nature of church law. We can achieve this by comparing the Statement of Principles of Chistian Law (2016) issued by the Ecumenical Christian Law Panel with the Nicene Canons (325) issued by the first Ecumenical Council. This article explores the similarities and differences between these two juridical entities – in terms of their (1) nature, authority, and reception; (2) subject matter; (3) sources; (4) purposes; and (5) internal structure – and what the Nicene Canons and the Christian Law Principles tell us about these five aspects of church law itself. I conclude with reflections on the value of comparison for the future of juridical ecumenism.

This article compares the 20 canons promulgated at the Council of Nicaea in 325 with the canons of the Church of England today. The author identifies a degree of consistency between the two sets of canons, especially when it comes to their treatment of diocesan episcopacy, synodality, metropolitical authority, primatial honour, and supra-metropolitical authority.

This article analyses the ongoing relevance of the Canons of Nicaea to our approach to clergy discipline today. The article undertakes a comparative analysis, examining the application of the Nicene canons to church discipline from the perspective of both Eastern and Western traditions. The articles concludes with an overview of the new Clergy Conduct Measure 2025 and identifies areas that warrant further ecumenical study and partnership.

Nicaea and the local church culture from which it emerged are examined to reveal that the lower clergy and laity had a distinct role in acclamation. They voted in episcopal elections and enjoyed a more intimate relation with their bishop. These elements of a dispersed authority are then used to critique contemporary governance in the Church of England as under- and over-centralised and to call for a renewal of a Dionysian understanding of hierarchy as enabling a more spiritual understanding both of episcopacy and of the participation of the whole people of God.

This article explores how some scholars have defined Anglicanism, before examining the institutions that have unified Anglicanism internationally throughout its history. It explores a number of classical statements of authority in Anglicanism, and explores how rapid cultural, liturgical, and demographic change from the 1950s challenged the unspoken assumptions on which these statements rested. These left Anglicanism facing less coherence, just as Global North Anglicanism was losing confidence due to the religious crisis of the 1960s. The article then explores the factors that led to the crisis of 1998 which weakened those institutions, a situation that continues to the present day. Finally, the article offers some thoughts on the future and the enduring, if unfashionable, importance of patriarchs as leaders in churches today.

This article examines (1) the contribution of Roman Emperors to the unity and peace of the Church; (2) the contribution of the Church to the constitution of good, even godly, society; and (3) compares the manner in which the patristic Church learnt to navigate these complex relationships with the close association between Monarch, Church and State throughout British history and in the 21st century.

This article examines the origin of and controversies surrounding the Nicene Creed and discusses its limitations as a statement of faith. It points out, for example, that the Creed fails to affirm either the unity of the three persons in one God or even the divinity or personhood of the Spirit. It neither affirms the creation of the world from nothing nor denies that the Son is a creature. The article then seeks to answer the following three questions: (1) why is the Creed so indecisive even on points that were under debate at the Council of Nicaea?; (2) if there was so little that could be defined, what did those who promulgated the Creed hope to accomplish?; and finally (3) where should we look for a trustworthy statement of the ecumenical teaching of the Church on creation, the Trinity and the mission of the Son?