Policies & Procedures

Code of Canons

Holy Wholly Accessible - A policy for ministry with people with disabilities

The Diocese of Christchurch policy for ministry with people with disabilities. This policy was passed by the Diocese of Christchurch Synod in 2003.

The following audit tool was designed to assist parishes in understanding appropriate ways to implement it.

Media Policy

Fraud Policy

Conflict of Interest Policy

Keeping Them Safe - A policy for the protection of children and young people and those with designated responsibility for them

This policy was passed by the Diocese of Christchurch Synod in 2003, and updated in 2009. Regular training days are held to assist people in applying the requirements of the policy. Please contact youthadviser@chch.ang.org.nz for further information.

Guidelines for Considering and Establishing Parish/Ministry Unit Clusters

Anglican Communion Practices

The threat of a pandemic has caused some anxiety over communion practices, and some are puzzled or upset over the advice that has been given to avoid intinction and, if necessary, to receive communion in one kind only.

Is there an official Anglican policy on this? No, but there is a well respected custom of long standing that to receive communion in one kind in no way ‘short changes’ any communicant. This has been the necessary pattern for some people for health reasons long before the threat of a pandemic: some have had to avoid the cup, and some the bread. But no one is deprived of full communion.

This can most easily be understood if we remember that the Eucharist or Holy Communion is table fellowship. When we go for a meal with friends, the meal is an effective sign of our friendship. The actual menu is in many respects irrelevant – it is the meal that both enables and creates the fellowship that is at the heart of the meal, regardless of how much or how little of the menu is shared.

In the case of the Eucharist, the bread and wine are so bound up with the history and meaning of Christ’s life and our tradition that the ‘menu’ is fixed, but it remains the fellowship that really matters. It is a unique fellowship in which we break bread and share the cup with each other as a sign of our membership of a new and reconciled humanity in Christ, our host at every Eucharist. The meaning both of the one bread broken and shared and of the one cup shared is identical – we who are many are one body because we all share the one bread/cup.

This reality can be obscured in a number of ways, even by commonly accepted practices such as individual wafers and queuing to receive communion one by one, but the meaning of both bread and wine is the same – we are made one in and through Christ who has reconciled us to God through his cross and to each other in him. This is so, whether we receive in one kind or in both.

Charities Commission Registration

The (Anglican) Diocese of Christchurch has been registered under the Charities Act backdated to 30 June 2008. The Registration number is CC31509. The Parishes and other Diocesan bodies will be covered by the Diocesan registration for charitable and tax exemption purposes. A list of these bodies and their IRD numbers has been supplied to the Charities Commission and to the IRD. In this context Parishes should use the title “Anglican Diocese of Christchurch, Parish of _______________________ (eg Addington, Timaru, etc) to clarify the link with the Diocese.