Leicester Consistory Court; Seed Ch. 18 May 1994

A votive candle stand could be seen in many Church of England cathedrals and parish churches and the fact there might be none in a particular geographical area was not a reason for not allowing the introduction of one such into one of the churches in that area. Traditions within a particular church change as congregations and their attitudes change and provided there was sufficient support for such a change after consultation, the introduction of the votive stand, which a majority of the worshipping congregation supported, and which the DAC approved, was to be allowed. It was unlikely to be a short lived fashion and what appeared to be the orchestrated opposition by one churchwarden and a few members of the congregation should not hinder its introduction. Whilst churchwardens were quite right to have a proprietorial air about church property, ownership of chattels, of course, being vested in them, their property was on behalf of the parishioners and as officers of the ordinary; it was not personal proprietorship and certainly not hereditary. A faculty was granted.

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(1995) 3 Ecc LJ 349-350