The Pursuit of a Canonical Definition of Membership of the Church of Ireland

This paper pursues a canonical definition of membership of the Church of Ireland. Both civil and Church laws presuppose that membership is defined; clergy rely on definitions, both formal and informal. In Ireland, freedom of religion is guaranteed and the courts are reluctant to interfere in the internal affairs of religious entities. Churches are voluntary associations, and church members are bound, inter se, by the church's internal laws as a matter of contract; this is given statutory expression in the Irish Church Act 1869. While the law of the Church of Ireland presents no unified definition of membership, the concept is utilised: strata of membership are manifest in a multiplicity of terminologies and roles. In the dynamics discerned in Church laws (not least the Preamble and Declaration and the Constitution of the Church of Ireland) a nascent definition of membership is detected. Comparison with the Anglican Communion and the ecumenical arena exposes weaknesses in the laws of the Church of Ireland. History indicates that membership was recognised and relied on in an establishment context, but not defined. In this paper, an anatomy of a canonical definition of membership that transcends such self-defining models is posited, based on the proposition that membership is more than what people say they are.