1.1 The Independence of the Manx Church

C. C. A. Pearce, M.A., LL.M., Ph.D. Solicitor
Centre for Legal Research and Policy Studies, Oxford Brookes University

Submitted 21/03/02, final text submitted 26/06/02

Abstract

In this paper, Dr Augur Pearce considers the legal basis on which the Diocese of Sodor and Man can be said to be integrated into the Church of England.

England and Man were by origin two quite separate jurisdictions, and although the medieval view of the church as one supranational hierarchy centred on Rome would make this fact irrelevant, the Reformation theory of national churches would point to a prima facie autonomous Manx Church, unless and until steps were taken to unite the English and Manx religious systems. The paper therefore considers the evidence for a pre-Reformation link to the province of Canterbury, the legal basis for the Reformation changes in preaching and liturgy, and the (limited) effect of the transfer of metropolitical oversight to York in 1541.

The real agent of integration, it is argued, has been nineteenth and twentieth century Westminster legislation. Behind the unquestioned factual Manx adherence to the English Church lies the authority of the Parliament of England over the Isle of Man. Even here, though, the normal rules for determining whether a Westminster enactment is intended to extend to the Island must apply, irrespective of whether that enactment be a traditional Act or a Measure framed in Church Assembly or General Synod.