Course summary

Develop your knowledge of Ecclesiastical Law on the first postgraduate programme of its kind in the UK. Our LLM in Canon Law is the first degree of its type at a British University since the Reformation. Set up in 1991, it has attracted the highest quality applicants. The programme provides an opportunity to study the canon law of the churches of the worldwide Anglican Communion, particularly the Church of England, and the Roman Catholic Church as well as the regulatory systems of other Christian traditions worldwide. This programme provides an opportunity for critical appraisal of ecclesiastical and canon law, in the context of relevant national and international secular law, in fields such as church government and ministry, doctrine, liturgy and rites, and property. The course works from an inter-disciplinary perspective. Although its principal focus is the substantive law, it seeks to explain, understand and evaluate church law from the perspectives of theology, history, sociology, and civil law. One key element in study, is to uncover the ecumenical potential of the comparative study of church laws to promote Christian unity among different churches worldwide. The LLM Canon Law programme is suitable for those who practise or are involved in the administration of church law and for those wishing to pursue an interest in this developing field of legal scholarship. The teachers on this course are drawn both from the field of academic law and religion and the practice of church law.