THE Church of England is to re-introduce “heresy trials” to discipline clergy who stray from the straight and narrow in matters concerning doctrine and ritual.

The move could enable the evangelical wing of the Church to lay siege to the liberals in ways they have previously only dreamed of, heralding a return to 19th-century controversies.

At the height of this battle between High and Low, four priests were imprisoned for “contumacy” — refusing to submit to the laws against High Church ritualism.

In theory, it will make it possible for a clergyman or woman to be defrocked for preaching and teaching in a way that contravenes any of the 39 Articles of Religion, the Bible, the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and church councils.

So, for example, Anglican priests who preached about the sanctity of gay “marriage” could find themselves the subject of a complaint by aggrieved evangelical parishioners or fellow clergy. Similarly, priests who indulged in “vain and rash swearing”, banned by Article XXXIX, expressed doubt in the Virgin Birth (Article II) or failed to keep their church clean and in good repair (Article XXXV) could lose their jobs.

Clergymen and women deemed to be in need of investigation for heresy will be hauled before a new Doctrinal disciplinary tribunal, where they will face a panel consisting of a legally qualified chairman, three bishops, two lay people and two other clergy.

Under the draft Clergy Discipline (Doctrine) Measure, to be debated by the General Synod next month, they will have the right of appeal to the Court of Ecclesiastical Causes Reserved, consisting of three bishops and two senior judges. Priests will face defrocking, or prohibition from exercising of holy orders, for heresies such as challenging the bodily Resurrection or the Trinity, a concept defined by Anglicans as a Godhead of “three persons of one substance”. A similar fate could await priests who taught that some religions besides Christianity can lead to salvation, or even that the Church of Rome might contain some merit.

Heretical priests were for many years dealt with by the Public Worship Regulation Act, passed in 1874 to suppress the growth of ritualism. It was superseded in 1963 by the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure, which covered matters of conduct and doctrine. This measure, which led to a spate of high-profile consistory court cases involving adulterous vicars, was so expensive and cumbersome that doctrinal matters were never successfully prosecuted under it.

In 40 years there was not a single case, even though this was the era when Bishop John Robinson scandalised the Church with his repudiation of the concept of a transcendental divinity in his book Honest to God. As the evangelical wing of the Church fought back through movements such as Reform, countering postwar liberalism with a Bible-based orthodoxy endorsed by thousands of young clergy, pressure grew for a system under which liberal clergy could be prosecuted, disciplined and, if necessary, sacked.

A system of tribunals has already been set up to deal with clergy accused of “conduct unbecoming” to holy orders. This is to be adapted to deal with matters of doctrine. In the preface to the report to go before the synod, the Bishop of Chester, Dr Peter Foster, says: “It is much better that controversies are addressed through theological discussion and debate, sympathetic inquiry and persuasion.”

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