So what is the general synod?
The national assembly of the Church of England – in effect its parliament. Established in 1970, it replaced the Church Assembly and continues a tradition of synodical government dating from medieval times.
Is there anything unusual about it?
It is the only body with powers delegated from parliament to pass so-called “measures” which are incorporated into English law. They have the full force and effect of an act of parliament and can apply to any Church-related matter. The arrangement exists because the Church of England is the “established” or state Church.
How does the process work?
MPs and peers can vote to agree or reject a measure, but cannot amend it. Once agreed by both houses of parliament, it goes for Royal Assent and becomes law.
This is true in the sense that a Victorian public school might in its publicity claim to be building upon a “medieval tradition”.
In England synods largely originated in the nineteenth century, were at first entirely clerical and had no power. Bishops began to call them to ask for advice. Other than governance by the Crown in Parliament – and I don’t think the medieval tradition referred to is Parliamentary authority over the church – the one “conciliar” tradition that the CofE inherited from the middle ages that might have had real authority – namely the Convocations of Canterbury and York was, in fact, largely powerless as the state drew jurisdiction into its own gravitational orbit. Even with its authority curtailed Convocation was not called at all for approx. 150 years between 1717 and the mid nineteenth century. So much for “synodical” tradition.
So it may be better, in England, to see the “revival” of synodicality in the mid/late nineteenth century as a part of the democratization of Victorian society and the delegation of powers from the state to the church as the state dropped its concern with matters ecclesial.
Wasn’t it Eric Hobsbawm who wrote about the invention of the tradition. For the first 300 years of the Church of England you’d be hard pressed to see it as any more synodical that any European catholic cultures and perhaps rather less synodical than English non conformism.
The last time that the Convocation of Canterbury spoke on its own authority was in 1559, and I suppose you all know what it said then.
Interesting to note the call on the public purse to fund CofE buildings – could that be because the liberal teachings of much of the CofE have been driving away parishioners who would otherwise pay the bills?