Convocation

A convocation (from the Latin meaning "to call/come together", a translation of the Greek ekklēsia) is a group of people formally assembled for a special purpose, mostly ecclesiastical or academic.

A synodical assembly of a church is at times called "Convocation"

The Convocations of Canterbury and York were the synodical assemblies of the two Provinces of the Church of England until the Church Assembly was established in 1920. Their origins date back to the end of the seventh century when Theodore of Tarsus (Archbishop of Canterbury, 668-690) reorganized the structures of the English Church and established national synod of bishops. With the recognition of York as a separate province in 733, this synod was divided into two. In 1225, representatives of the cathedral and monastic chapters were included for the first time and in 1285 the membership of the Convocation of Canterbury assumed the basic form which it retained till 1921: Bishops, Abbots (till the 1530s and the Dissolution of the Monasteries), Deans, and Archdeacons, plus one representative of each cathedral chapter and two for the clergy from each diocese. By the fifteenth century, each convocation was divided into an upper house (the Bishops) and a lower house (the remaining members). In 1921, the number of proctors (elected representatives) of the diocesan clergy was increased to make them a majority in the lower houses.

The Convocation of York was a relatively small part of the Church in England and Wales with only five member dioceses in Henry VIII's reign. In 1462 it decided that all the provincial constitutions of Canterbury which were not repugnant or prejudicial to its own should be allowed in the Northern Province and by 1530 the Archbishop of York rarely attended sessions and the custom that York waited to see what Canterbury had decided and either accepted or rejected it was well established. The Convocation of York was, in practice, taking second place to that of Canterbury so much so that in 1852 the Archbishop of York Thomas Musgrave stated that since the time of Henry VIII the archbishop had only attended personally two sessions (in 1689 and 1708).

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