RELIGIOUS ACTIVITY.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1372, 24 February 1912, Page 3

RELIGIOUS ACTIVITY.

ANGLICAN COMMUNION. RELATIONS OF COLONIAL BRANCHES TO THE MOTIIIOIt CHURCH. Although the spiritual tie which binds tho Mather Church to her daughter Dioceses is gratefully recognised on this side of tho world, there has of late years been a growing anxiety as to tho actual legal nexus between them (says tho "Guardian"). By u large body uf ecclesiastical opinion "throughout the Australasian Church it is telt that the Dioceses by pledging themselves, as they all have duno in Iheir Constitutions, to conformity with the "authorised standards" of doctrine and discipline of the Church of England, have unduly restricted the freedom which belongs to National Churches, into which thoso of Australia and Tasmania and New Zealand now claim to have developed. A still larger section of Churchmen in the Commonwealth and the Dominion resist tho contention that this legal conformity carries with it tho obligation to bo governed by the decisions of the Privy Council because they are authoritative interpretations of tho doctrinal and disciplinary system with which the Colonial Churches havo formally identified themselves. .There is tho further serious consideration of how these questions affect tho large amount of property which has been given in Australasia to "tho Church of England" in tho sovcral States. Another factor of importance, in endeavouring to settlo tho issues raised, is that most of the Dioceses have obtained from tho local Legislatures cither direct statutory obligation for their Constitutions or bavo resorted to the Parliaments for Acts affecting their property.