= Сообщение: 4399 из 12550 ====================================== ENET.SYSOP = От : David Rance 2:203/2 06 Nov 16 16:26:29 Кому : Björn Felten 06 Nov 16 16:26:29 Тема : The UK Church vs. the Government FGHI : area://ENET.SYSOP?msgid=2:203/2+581f4b9c На : area://ENET.SYSOP?msgid=2:203/2+581ea200 = Кодировка сообщения определена как: CP437 ================================== Ответ: area://ENET.SYSOP?msgid=2:203/2+581fb4ba ============================================================================== On Sun, 6 Nov 2016 04:22:42 Björn Felten -> David Rance wrote:
BF> I've watched the Netflix series (The Crown) about QEII's first years BF> in power, and in particular her problems with her kid sister Margaret's BF> love affair with Peter Townsend (I guess there are no relationship with BF> certain guitar player here? :) )
No, not at all.
BF> Now, you being so old, you maybe even were around by the time, do BF> you have any thoughts about what happened by that time?
"At that time" rather than "by that time". Yes, I was. And we don't talk about our head of state being "in power" because she has none. Theoretically she does but were she to try to exercise "power" she would soon be stopped!
BF> From what I understand it was all a matter of the Church vs. the BF> State. The UK Church did not acknowledge any divorce (much like when BF> King Edward VIII was forced to abdicate) so Margaret had to jump BF> through lots of hoops to get her beloved Peter, but no matter how she BF> jumped she was not allowed to marry him in the end.
It's much more complicated than that. The Anglican Church acknowledged divorce at that time; the Roman Catholic Church still doesn't. I need to marshal my thoughts.
Ward is quite right that the Queen is the head of the Anglican Church. If you look at British coins you will see (and I'm looking at a £2 coin) "Elizabeth II . Dei Gra. Reg. (Dei Gratia Regina) Fid. Def. (Fidei defensatrix)". (on smaller coins Fid. Def. is abbreviated further to F.D.). The translation is "Elizabeth the Second, Queen by the Grace of God, Defender of the Faith".
When Elizabeth came to the throne in 1952 the UK was, by today's standards, very old fashioned. It wasn't the multi-ethnic and multi-faith society that it is now, therefore one could say that it was still a Christian country as almost its only religion was Christianity. This is not to say that everyone was a practising Christian (i.e. that they regularly attended church). Church attendance had been dropping off since the 19th century. But because, way back, our laws had been based on Christian teachings, or interpretations of Christian teachings, and because we don't have a written constitution as most other countries do, then our laws are still based on Christianity.
As an aside, back in the early 20th century, if anyone was admitted to hospital or who died and they didn't go to church they were labelled "C. of E." (Church of England). Anyone who claimed to be atheist, or even agnostic, was not socially acceptable. If you died but didn't have a religion, you could not be buried in a church cemetery which is why you had to be C. of E. When towns and villages started providing their own burial grounds which were not consecrated then this became less important.
I'm filling in these details so that you can see what British attitudes were in the past and how difficult it has been to change them.
As a further aside, you may wonder what is the basis of our constitution if it isn't written down anywhere. Our constitution is to be found in numerous Acts of Parliament going back centuries.
But the religious side isn't the whole of the story. Public opinion and tradition have been just as influential though, of course, these grew up originally on the basis of Christian, or rather, Church, teachings.
When I was a boy in the middle of the 20th century, the attitudes of the British people were still very much anchored in the 19th century. My own parents were actually born at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries and I can remember their conversations about various things. Divorce may have been legal but it was frowned upon. When a married cousin of mine came back from WW2 with a French girl friend and then proceeded to get a divorce my parents were scandalised. And if a couple lived together without being married (the expression was "living in sin") they were treated as social outcasts. In those days, you could even lose your job!
So what happened to change people's opinions? The swinging sixties, that's what happened. Society exercised so much moral repression which was at variance with younger people's own beliefs that something had to burst and it was in the sixties that young people became independent because they had money and enough to spare.
So, let's come back to the Royal Family. Our royal family has always been held up as a model family to which all should aspire, and that's been the trouble. People always took our royal family as a model to imitate and so it had to be above reproach. When royal weddings/funerals, etc., took place, people would tend to include in their own family services music and poems that had been used in royal services. Parents would give royal names to their children.
Obviously in the 1930s we were still living in an age when a divorced person was not socially acceptable. It was always necessary for royals to marry at least into the nobility. Edward VIII wanted to marry, not only a commoner, but a divorced commoner at that (and an American!). Could Edward have gone ahead and married Wallace Simpson? The Anglican church, and most other churches at that time would not have married them but it's possible that they could have married somewhere. But if they did then public opinion in all probability would have demanded the abolition of the monarchy.
Anyway, that crisis occurred in 1936; I was born in 1939 so I don't remember it first-hand. But I do remember Princess Margaret not being allowed to marry Peter Townsend in the 1950s, barely twenty years later, and it was for the same reasons. By 1960, things were getting a little easier (and I think the country was getting tired of this war of attrition) and so she was allowed to marry Anthony Armstrong-Jones, not that their life-style was anything for a nice family to copy!
Attitudes over the years have softened to the extent that Prince Charles (as successor to the throne) was allowed to marry a divorcee. (Had Diana still been alive I doubt that he could have married again after their divorce - things hadn't softened to that extent!) And Prince William (as next in line) had no problems in marrying a commoner, Kate Middleton.
Public attitudes have changed and it has enabled the Royal Family now to behave much more like a normal family.
BF> Now, as far as I can see it, this is a matter of separating or not BF> the crown from the church, right?
Well, as you see from the above, that's not possible - at the moment. Prince Charles has said that he doesn't want to be "Defender of the Faith" when he becomes king, which is a pragmatic approach to a country which is now multi-religious. But if he insists on this then there will have to be a severing of the church from the state. This may well be a sensible way forward.
BF> The Swedish constitution clearly states that there can be no BF> connection between the church and the state or the crown. How about the BF> present UK constitution?
Again, as I said above there is no written British constitution and so there would have to be an Act of Parliament.
BF> And as I've watched the above TV series, I have a ton of other BF> questions to a UK old-timer like you, but I'll leave it be for now. 8-)
Do keep your questions coming - but less of the "old-timer"!!!
David
-- David Rance writing from Caversham, Reading, UK
