Ecclesiastical Faculty

Where a body or human remains have been interred in consecrated ground, the Burial Act 1857 makes it an offence to remove them except under one of a small number of routes. Section 25 of the Act provides that it is an offence for a body or any human remains which have been interred in a place of burial to be removed unless one of the conditions listed in subsection (2) is complied with — and the first of those conditions is that the body or remains is or are removed in accordance with a faculty granted by the court. In this context 'court' means the consistory court of the diocese or, in the diocese of Canterbury, the commissary court of that diocese. Land that is not consecrated instead requires a Ministry of Justice exhumation licence.

The same faculty requirement applies more broadly to work in a churchyard beyond exhumation. Church of England guidance on burials and memorials explains that new memorials, reservation of grave spaces, and areas set aside for cremated remains generally need a faculty: a faculty is required for memorials or a gravestone of good design but outside the regulations, and reservation of a grave space is likewise obtained through a faculty from the consistory court.

Because the same word 'faculty' covers both routine churchyard permissions (memorials, minor works) and the more sensitive permission to exhume, the ecclesiastical faculty for exhumation is treated with particular caution by the consistory court, which will weigh the reasons given by the applicant against the general principle that Christian burial is intended to be permanent.