Civil ceremony in a Chapel/Church?

onlyroz

Torry_Quine wrote: »

Not all churches have that requirement to marry anyone who asks and is living in the area. My church will only marry Christians to each other.

It's not about God giving nod! :mad: It's about making your promises to God, who to believers is of far more importance than anyone else there.

No-one is encouraging anyone to lie about what they do or do not believe.

My understanding was that CofE churches were legally obliged to perform marriage ceremonies for anybody who met the residency requirements, regardless of their faith (or lack of it). If you were a CofE minister would you prefer to collude in a lie, or instead offer a cut-down service that removed references to God?

Jagraf

Some people would prefer to go o work in just their underwear, but it wouldn't be allowed ( in the main ). For me, wanting to have a civil marriage in a church is missing the point, and is therefore just as absurd as the underwear suggestion

Jagraf

onlyroz wrote: »

My understanding was that CofE churches were legally obliged to perform marriage ceremonies for anybody who met the residency requirements, regardless of their faith (or lack of it). If you were a CofE minister would you prefer to collude in a lie, or instead offer a cut-down service that removed references to God?

If someone wants to collude in a lie, so be it. That's not the minster's fault.

duchy

I'm another who thinks it's very shallow to want a secular ceremony is a religious setting.

I really can't believe anyone would be crass enough to ask a vicar to remove the religion though !

Perhaps that's the difference between wanting a marriage ceremony and a wedding ? Bells and a church gate just outside a church don't make a marriage even if they make for better wedding photos and video.

onlyroz

Jagraf wrote: »

Some people would prefer to go o work in just their underwear, but it wouldn't be allowed ( in the main ). For me, wanting to have a civil marriage in a church is missing the point, and is therefore just as absurd as the underwear suggestion

There are three separate issues here: whether you're allowed to have a civil ceremony in a church (and it turns out you legally can't), whether anybody would ever want to (and I doubt many people would, but there might be circumstances where it was the best option), and whether such an arrangement would ever be acceptable to the church. My questions have only been about the last issue, which I still don't get and probably never will.

So I'll ask one more time: why would it be so abhorrent for a church to loan out their facilities for an hour so that a civil ceremony could be conducted on the premises? Nobody is asking a religious minister to conduct the ceremony, nobody is expecting the church to incur any costs, and nobody necessarily has to even touch any of the sacred objects within the church. The ceremony itself would not include any words that could possibly be offensive to any religion, because there would be no mention of God.

(Also note that churches are allowed to conduct Civil Partnership ceremonies - I'm not sure why this is perfectly acceptable when a civil wedding is not).

duchy

Nobody bothers with civil partnerships anymore though now -they just get married . Even people who have civil partnerships are "upgrading".

It doesn't have to be "abhorrent " to the church -it's not legal so end of.
If there was demand for it then maybe the church would petition for the law to be changed...... but there simply isn't any significant demand for it. Maybe back when the only choice was church or registry office some people would have liked the option but nowadays when there is a much wider choice it's an irrelevance anyway.

onlyroz

duchy wrote: »

It doesn't have to be "abhorrent " to the church -it's not legal so end of.
If there was demand for it then maybe the church would petition for the law to be changed...... but there simply isn't any significant demand for it. Maybe back when the only choice was church or registry office some people would have liked the option but nowadays when there is a much wider choice it's an irrelevance anyway.

You're still missing my point. I know it's not legal, and I know that it's not something that most people would want. But I don't see why it's such a big deal.

TonyMMM

barbarawright wrote: »

According to Post 2, a civil marriage can take place anywhere that has a local authority licence including a religious building though I doubt it's common.

Lets get this absolutely clear and make sure the facts are understood.

Civil marriage was an option introduced in this country in 1837 - ever since then a civil marriage and a religious marriage have been kept legally separate and each governed by separate sets of strict rules.

A civil marriage, which until very recently could only take place in a register office, can have no religious content whatsoever - no prayers, no hymns, no music with any religious connotation, no readings mentioning God or religion - you can't even use any of the words of the religious marriage service (so no "til death us do part" or "in sickness and in health" etc. ).

A comparatively recent change allowed civil ceremonies to take place in "approved premises" - so you can now get married in a hotel, stately home or golf club etc. as long as it has been through the licensing process and been approved.

The Marriages and Civil Partnerships (Approved Premises) Regulations 2005 make it very clear that religious premises cannot be licensed or approved for performing civil marriage ceremonies.

There is an exception that allows religious premises to apply for permission to perform civil partnerships that was put in to the legislation at the time to allow same sex couples to have the option of a church ceremony for their civil partnership (if their religion wished to allow it) so that they had the same choice as any couple getting married.

That exception is now largely irrelevant because-
a) Hardly any (if any at all) religious premises made such an application and;
b) The introduction of same sex marriages (which are subject to the same rules as any other civil marriages) has reduced the number of civil partnerships taking place to almost nil.

There is no discretion, no allowance for the vicar to decide their own rules about having a civil ceremony in church, and no question of creating your own mix/match civil/church ceremony.

Until/unless the law changes that is the clear position.

Churches however, can set their own rules about who they are prepared to marry in their churches so long as it is done under the legislation and procedures covering a religious marriage.

As far as the words used goes - both civil and religious marriages have to contain 2 specific legal vows - beyond that the words can be varied subject to the approval of the registrar or religious celebrant.

There is also the complication of some religions/religious premises not having an "authorised person" who can deal with the legal side of the marriage so in some cases a registrar may visit a religious building to legally register a wedding after a religious marriage ceremony has taken place, or the couple may attend the register office before or after their religious ceremony to "legally" get married.

Hope that helps.

duchy

onlyroz wrote: »

You're still missing my point. I know it's not legal, and I know that it's not something that most people would want. But I don't see why it's such a big deal.

It isn't a big deal to anyone but you apparently :rotfl:

Everyone else just accepts that is how marriage ceremonies work and there is no sane reason to change things just because a few posers fancy a church in their wedding photos . Basic respect for other people's beliefs is more important to everyone else.

duchy

To follow on from Tony's post there's also the quirk that certain religious premises can't perform legal marriage . The wedding has to be open to all so in cases like certain temples where entry is restricted to those of the faith or those of good standing in the church in the case of LDS temples a marriage ceremony isn't legal so the couple need a civil ceremony elsewhere too.