Professor Mark Hill, QC, one of the world’s leading “law and religion” scholars, delivered the 2nd Sharwood Lecture in Church Law in Sydney and Melbourne in February 2019. He and the organisers have kindly agreed to my providing a copy of the text of the lecture for readers of this blog. The lecture deals with the structure of the Anglican communion, and questions to do with Anglican Canon Law (the internal law of Anglicanism).

The Abstract of the lecture:

One of the unusual features of the Anglican Communion is the manner in which its component provinces (including the Anglican Church of Australia) are autonomous yet at the same time remain in communion one with another and with the See of Canterbury. Emerging as an additional ‘instrument of unity’ for the Communion are identifiable Principles of Anglican Canon Law, drawn from common features of the particular laws of each province. These contribute to the self-understanding of Anglican identity and have a significance in terms of the ecclesiology of the Communion and its constituent parts. The 2019 Sharwood Lecture addresses how the Principles of Anglican Canon Law and a subsequent Statement of Christian Law provide a fruitful subject for study as a form of applied ecclesiology, and bring vision and vitality to the ecumenical endeavour.

The lecture can be downloaded here: