[This one story illustrates the]…crisis facing the custodians of the 12,000 listed Anglican parish churches around the country, two thirds of which are in rural areas with tiny and dwindling congregations struggling to pay maintenance bills. The desperation caused by this funding shortfall has been brought into sharp relief this week by the news that thousands of homeowners living near ancient churches potentially face large bills for the upkeep of their fabric, even if they never set foot inside them.
The Anglican authorities are currently writing to parochial church councils to encourage them to register what are called “chancel repair liabilities”. These date back more than 500 years to the Reformation period and the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Those who took over what had been monks’ land took on the responsibility for repairing the chancel (the area around the altar) in the local church. These remain on the statute book, even though they have fallen into abeyance.
I’m not sure that taking people in a financial stranglehold with a 500 year old law is really better witness than convincing the community that the church actually matters enough to pay for its upkeep.
It makes me deeply ashamed to minister in this church and this diocese. God, have mercy.
If you buy Glebe land you also buy the obligation to repair the chancel of the parish church. That guy ought to sue his lawyer, who should have looked over the documents more carefully. Let the buyer beware.
Of course, if you had not dissolved the monasteries and seized their land, this problem would not have arisen. Another dire legacy of Henry VIII.
“Of course, if you had not dissolved the monasteries and seized their land, this problem would not have arisen. Another dire legacy of Henry VIII.”
The problems between the leadership of the Roman Church and the King of England and the English Parliament and the Anglican Church began many generations before Henry VIII.
In the late 1300s, the English Parliament passed the Statute of Praemunire to restrain the authority of the Pope in England.
And let’s not forget Augistine’s hostile takeover of Christians in Britain starting in the late 500s.
Henry VIII’s sins cannot be overloked nor condoned, but the Anglican Church and/or the English king and/or the English Parliament had been working out differences with Rome over many centuries. The unresolved differences finally led directly to the break of the Anglican Church from Rome.
As we are aware, Henry VIII’s troubles with Rome also coincidied with the Protestant Reformation. Which itself was sometimes in significant ‘error’ matching or exceeding the ‘error’ of the Roman Church that led up to the Reformation.
With respect to the seizure of church property by Henry VIII, those seizures were in error when Anglican properties, many doing solid Christian ministry, were given away to Henry VIII’s cronies. He can be definitely faulted for those actions.
But the excesses of many Protestants can also be faulted for their sinful prejudiced actions (particularly on the part of 16th and 17th cebtury Calvinists) and for their breaking away from Apostolic Church or Church Catholic (as specified in the Apostolic and Nicene Creeds).