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Re St Sebastian, Wokingham

Oxford Consistory Court: Rogers Dep Ch, 9 February 2021 [2021] ECC Oxf 1 Memorial – relocation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2021

David Willink*
Affiliation:
Deputy Chancellor of the Dioceses of Salisbury and St Albans
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Abstract

Type
Case Notes
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical Law Society 2021

The petitioner, representing the Huddersfield and District Army Veterans Association, sought a faculty for the removal of the memorial cross of the association's founder from the churchyard and its relocation to the association's military plot at the municipal cemetery. The cross no longer marked the founder's grave, having been moved to lean against the church wall when the plot was paved over for a path. The Parochial Church Council did not object to the proposal and the Diocesan Advisory Committee recommended the work. The nearest living relatives, two great-granddaughters of the founder's widow's half-brother, were traced and gave their permission for the removal of the memorial.

Some harm would be caused by removing the memorial, in that its purpose and context in marking the churchyard where the founder was buried (if not the precise grave) would be removed. The court was not convinced either that the removal of the memorial was necessary to celebrate the memory of the founder at the Huddersfield plot, or that the benefits in doing so would outweigh the harm in removing it from St Sebastian's churchyard. A faculty was refused. [DW]