CLERGY AND MARRIAGE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15823, 21 January 1915, Page 7

CLERGY AND MARRIAGE.

BISHOP AVERILL'S VIEWS.

CEREMONIES IN HOUSES.

A statement was recently published to the effect that the Bishop of Wellington desired that no marriages should be celebrated in private houses except in cases where both parties were living at least six miles from a church. It was also stated that it was the desire of the bishops that no clergyman be married within three years of his ordination to the diaconate.

These matters, said Bishop Averill yesterday, were resolutions passed by the bishops at a meeting held some time ago, and were a general rule, although, of course, each bishop made his own regulations in regard to them.

Referring to the celebration of marriages in private houses, he said that a marriage could not be so celebrated in the Auckland diocese without the bishop's sanction having first been obtained.

In regard to the other point, it was certainly the general rule of the province that no clergyman should be married within three years of his ordination, but there must, of course, be exceptions, because some meu were ordained at a greater age than others.

" In reference to men who are ordained at the usual age of 23 years," he continued, " I think it is perfectly right that they should be prepared to give not only three, but five or six years to their work before they think of being married. It is most important that we should have a supply of young men who wjll do backblocks work, and in work of this nature it is impossible for a man to be married. He has to live chiefly in the saddle, and to be travelling about nearly all his time." Bishop Avsrill added that he had found no objection to the latter rule. He was thankful for the number of men who had said to him that they were prepared to go where they were naeded. That was the spirit the Church wanted.