Church Assembly (Church of England)

The General Synod is the deliberative and legislative body of the Church of England. The synod was instituted in 1970, replacing the Church Assembly, and is the culmination of a process of rediscovering self-government for the Church of England that had started in the 1850s.

Before 1919, any change to the Church's worship or governance had to be by Act of Parliament, which resulted in little being done. In 1919, the Convocations of the Provinces of Canterbury and York adopted the constitution of the National Church Assembly proposed by the Representative Church Council and presented it to the King as an appendix to an address. The constitution as proposed to the Sovereign was then recognised as already existing in the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919 thus obtaining legal recognition of the Assembly without implying that it had been created by Parliament or that Parliament could modify its constitution.

By means of the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919 Parliament then gave the Assembly power to prepare Measures which, once presented to Parliament and approved by a special procedure (see below), were to "have the force and effect of an Act of Parliament" on "any matter concerning the Church of England", and included the power to repeal or amend Acts of Parliament concerning the Church. The preparation of such measures lay mainly with a joint Legislative Committee of the three houses of the Assembly and this Committee negotiated with the parliamentary Ecclesiastical Committee to reach an agreed form.

The Act required that, after being passed by the Assembly, the measure had to be examined by a joint committee of both Houses of Parliament which prepared a report to both houses. If then approved by each House, it was submitted to the Sovereign for Royal Assent. If MPs or members of the House of Lords were not content with a Measure then they could vote to reject it, but not amend it. Once a measure had been agreed ("deemed expedient") by both Houses of Parliament, and received Royal Assent, it was (from 1926) printed with the Acts of Parliament for the year in question.

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