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The Registry provides legal advice to clergy, parish officers, boards and councils. The Registry also oversees the faculty system which enables churches to make changes to their buildings.
The work of the Diocesan Registry includes advising on:
- licensing of clergy and lay office-holders;
- parish reorganisations;
- patronage matters;
- church land matters;
- consecration of churches, churchyards and burial grounds;
- church buildings and faculty jurisdiction;
- marriage law (including the issue of common marriage licences);
- burial law, memorials and exhumations;
- maintenance of diocesan records;
- advice to clergy, PCCs and other church councils;
- the Clergy Disciplinary Measure.
Contact us…
Sheffield Diocesan Registry
Anthony Collins Solicitors
134 Edmund Street
Birmingham
B3 2ES
Email: sheffielddiocesanregistry@anthonycollins.com
Or…contact the Registry Clerk
Matters dealt with by the Registry include:
Common Marriage Licences
The traditional preliminary to a church wedding is the reading of the banns over a period of three weeks. In some circumstances it may not be possible for banns to be read, you will need instead to apply for a Special Licence or a Common Licence. Special Licences are granted by the Archbishop of Canterbury via the Faculty Office. A Common Licence is the Bishop’s permission to marry in a particular church in the diocese.
If you think you need a common licence please consult Church of England guidance on such licences and contact the Diocesan Registry as soon as possible. The Registrar will establish your eligibility or otherwise and will provide further guidance on the process.
The current cost of a Common Marriage Licence is £200.
Grave Space Reservations
A grave space within a churchyard may only be reserved by lodging a petition for faculty (i.e. an application) with the Diocesan Registry. Further information and application forms can be downloaded below or obtained from the Registry. Before submitting a petition, please consult the minister or churchwardens responsible for the churchyard in which you wish to reserve a space. As part of the process, you will need to display public notices that you are applying for a burial space. The views of the church council, churchwardens and minister responsible for the churchyard will be considered as part of the process.
Please complete the petition form below and send it to the Registry with the fee (currently £327.40), which is payable upon application.
Whether the application is successful is at the discretion of the Chancellor of the Diocese, sitting as Judge in the Consistory Court.
Churchyard Memorials
If you have lost someone dear to you, you may wish to seek to erect a memorial (i.e. a headstone) to them in the churchyard where they are buried. For this, you should complete a memorial permission form and submit it to the minister responsible for the churchyard in question. Please note that memorials can only be installed after six months have elapsed from the date of burial.
The Churchyard Regulations of the Diocese of Sheffield govern the kind of memorials that are permissible. They prescribe the design and materials that may be used for headstones and offer guidance on appropriate inscriptions. They also specify some of the things that are not permitted in the Diocese’s churchyards. You should consult the Diocese of Sheffield Churchyard Regulations before approaching a stonemason or submitting an application.
If the memorial you wish to install does not comply with the Diocese’s Churchyard Regulations, you have the right to apply instead to the Consistory Court to seek permission to introduce a non-compliant memorial by faculty. For this, you will need to submit a faculty petition form to the Registry, accompanied by the standard petition fee (currently £327.40).
For further information and advice on any of the above, please do not hesitate to contact us.