DIVORCE AND REMARRIAGE

Evening Star, Issue 22618, 9 April 1937, Page 14

DIVORCE AND REMARRIAGE

THE ANGLICAN LAW NO CHURCHING WHILE OTHER PARTY ALIVE [Per United Press Association.] HAMILTON, April 8. The Primate, Archbishop A. W. Averill, 10 bishops, 26 clergy, and 31 laity are attending the General Synod of the Church of England, which opened 'at Hamilton to-day. Archbishop Averin extended a welcome to the gathering. The deliberations are expected to last for 10 days. _ Dealing witljdivorce during the course of 3. lengthy address, Archbishop Averill: said that, judged by the experience of every bishop_ ana parish priest, it would seem as it the church’s • pronouncements on _ important questions concerning marriage and divorce were absolutely unknown to the great majority of people. Many of the church people seemed to he hopelessly confused, owing to the fact that ecclesiastical law and civil law on the question ■ of divorce and .expressed different and divergent points of view. Whereas the sanctions of civil law were fairly generally known, hew* many people were acquainted with the 1 real reasons for the church’s attitude to divorce and remarriage and the Erinciples on-.which that attitude was ased? “We wish it to be known that the remarriage of a divorced person during the lifetime of the other party is, therefore, contrary to the law of the church of this province, and that no bishop or priest of the church is at liberty to celebrate such a marriage,” added the archbishop. The State was quite at liberty to make its own laws, and had to legislate for all sorts and conditions of men, continued His Grace, but human laws could not alter or suppress or water down God’s laws. Christian men and women were in honour hound to obey God rather than man. The church was not'* subservient department of the State, but the Body of Christ, sent out and > commissioned to teach and uphold in -the world the will of God and the teaching of Christ.