General Synod votes to retain marriage banns
The General Synod has rejected moves to end the legal requirement to read banns for couples intending to marry in church services.
Members voted against a Private Member’s Motion brought by Rev Stephen Trott, from Peterborough Diocese, calling for draft legislation to be drawn up to transfer ‘ecclesiastical preliminaries’, the legal paperwork currently carried out by Church of England clergy before a church wedding, to civil registrars.
The motion called for a similar system to the one in operation in Scotland since 1977, when banns were replaced by a Marriage Schedule issued by the civil registrar.
Rev Trott told the General Synod that administering banns was ‘fraught with difficulties’ and a cause of ‘great concern and even stress’ to clergy.
Clergy should be concerned with marriage teaching and preparation and not the ‘heavy burden’ of a legal role, he said.
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