Union of Churches

Union Of Churches in English law, is the combining and consolidating of two churches into one. It is also where one Church is made subject to another and one man is rector of both, and where a conventual Church is made a cathedral. In the first case, if two churches were so mean that the tithes could not afford a competent provision for each incumbent, the ordinary, patron, and incumbents might unite them at common-law before any statute was made for that purpose; and in such case it was agreed which patron should present first; for though, by the union, the incumbency of one Church was lost, yet the patronage remained, and each patron might have a quare

impedit, upon a disturbance, to present it in his turn. The license of the king is not necessary to a union, as it is to the appropriation of advowsons; because an appropriation is a mort main, and the patronage of the advowson is lost, and, by consequence, all first-fruits and tenths; whereas in a union these consequences do not follow. The three statutes in existence relating to union of churches are the 37 Henry VIII, c. 21 the 17 Charles II, c. 3; and the 4 and 5 William and Mary, c. 12.