The Ambassador of the Embassy of the Republic of Serbia petitioned the Consistory Court of the Diocese of Oxford for permission to exhume the remains of Queen Maria of Yugoslavia from the consecrated Royal Burial Ground at Frogmore for reinterment in the unconsecrated family crypt in St George’s Church, Oplenac, in the city of Topola, Serbia. Although a faculty would not normally be granted for exhumation where reinterment would not take place in consecrated ground, the Chancellor was satisfied that the remains would be reinterred in "a place of real permanence", namely the royal mausoleum in Serbia, and he accordingly granted a faculty.

In 2002 a faculty was granted for the installation of telecoms equipment in the church tower. A document entitled "Lease of Rights" was entered into by the then incumbent and the PCC and O2 (UK) Limited, but it was not authorised by the faculty. In 2013 the telecoms company wished to make changes to the equipment. Some work was done without faculty, but then an application was made in 2016 for a confirmatory faculty to approve the additional works. It was not clear to the Chancellor till much later that some of the work had not yet been done. The Chancellor was concerned about the lack of proper representation, the proposed draft lease/licence, and that before the proceedings were concluded the telecoms company decided to withdraw from the site, so that the Chancellor had to approve terms for the decommissioning of the equipment.

This judgment concerned a preliminary issue as to whether a faculty would be required for the sale of a Greek lectionary, which had been given to the church in 1948. The church is unlisted and unconsecrated, but in 1990 the Bishop of Southwark made an order under the provisions of section 6 of the Faculty Jurisdiction Measure 1964, making the church subject to the faculty jurisdiction. The lectionary had never been kept in the church. It was originally put into a bank vault, but allegedly displayed in the church occasionally on festival occasions. In 1968 it was loaned to the British Library. In 2019 the British Library informed the parish that it no longer wished to have the lectionary on loan, and it was transferred to Trinity College, Cambridge. Notwithstanding that the lectionary had rarely, if ever, been in the church, the Chancellor decided that it could still be described as part of the contents of the church, even if its whereabouts were not physically inside the church. Therefore, a faculty would be required to authorise a disposal of the lectionary.

The petitioner sought the exhumation of the cremated remains of her father, interred in 1977, in order to comply with the wish of her late mother, who died in 2013, that the ashes of both parents might be scattered together on the banks of the river Tyne in the village where the couple had met, courted and been married. The Chancellor determined that he was unable to grant a Faculty for two reasons: (1) beginning with the presumption that Christian burial should be regarded as final, and therefore exhumation should only be allowed in exceptional circumstances, the Court of Arches, in Re Blagdon Cemetery [2002], expressly considered the case of a change of mind on the part of the relatives who had brought about the original interment and stated that this “should not be treated as an acceptable ground for authorising exhumation”; (2) where remains have been committed to the care of the Church, they should only be disturbed if the Court can be satisfied that appropriate arrangements are in place for the continuing protection of the remains.

The petitioner's father had died in 2017 and was buried in the cemetery in Stafford, in one half of a double grave, so that the petitioner's mother could be buried next to her husband in due course. The petitioner and her mother intended to remain in Stafford, but circumstances changed and they moved to Anglesey. The petitioner wished to move her father's remains for reburial in Anglesey, where the petitioner's mother could in due course be buried next to her husband. The Deputy Chancellor refused to grant a faculty. Following the guidance of the Court of Arches in Re Blagdon Cemetery [2002] Fam 299, the fact that the petitioner's mother (aged 95) was infirm and could no longer manage the journey to Stafford was not capable of being an exceptional circumstance such as to justify exhumation.

The Petitioner, Mrs Stella Yiasimi, sought a Faculty to reserve a double grave space in Tolleshunt Knights Cemetery for herself and her husband, citing long-standing connections with the adjacent Eastern Orthodox Monastery of St John the Baptist. She was not resident in the parish, had no link with its parish churches, and therefore had no legal right of burial. The Team Rector and Parochial Church Council (PCC) opposed the application, relying on a policy limiting grave reservations to parish residents or those connected with the parish churches. The policy aimed to preserve limited burial space for parishioners and to avoid the cemetery becoming filled by visitors to the monastery, whose own burial ground is reserved for resident members only. The Chancellor, though sympathetic, found the PCC’s policy reasonable and justified. She doubted whether a Faculty could lawfully be granted without the Team Rector’s consent, and held that, even if such power existed, exceptional circumstances would be required to override the policy, and none had been shown. The petition was therefore refused.

The petitioner, the daughter and an executor of her late father, wished to erect a memorial to her father in the churchyard. The memorial had already been manufactured without prior approval and did not fully comply with diocesan churchyard regulations. Although the shape of the memorial was a technical departure from the regulations, the Chancellor regarded this as a minor issue that would not, by itself, have prevented permission being granted. The principal difficulty arose from an objection by the petitioner’s mother to the inscription, specifically the phrase “A dear husband,” which she contended did not reflect the deceased’s own manner of expression. The Chancellor emphasised that executors have no legal right to determine the design of a memorial in consecrated ground; any memorial requires ecclesiastical permission. The Chancellor therefore exercised her discretion, noting family disagreement, the absence of malice by the petitioner, the fact that the wording was not intrinsically objectionable, and that the stone had already been made, making replacement wasteful and costly. Balancing these factors, she granted the faculty and allowed the memorial to be installed.

The Faculty Petition sought permission for (a) CCTV cameras, (b) a projector and screen, and (c) new railings for the churchyard. Objections were made in respect of the proposed new railings. The Chancellor granted a Faculty for all the items. 

This judgment related to Re Tonge Moor St. Augustine (1) [2012]. The Chancellor refused to make an order for costs against the objectors.

The petitioner applied for permission to exhume the remains of her baby, who had died fifteen years previously aged 12 weeks, following an operation to repair a heart defect. At the time of the baby's death, the petitioner and her former partner had lived in Lancashire, where the baby had been buried, but the petitioner (and her former partner) now lived in Yorkshire. The petitioner claimed that owing to her state of health it was difficult to visit the grave in Lancashire. Her former partner objected to the proposed exhumation and became a party opponent. The Deputy Chancellor, after considering the decisions in Re Christ Church, Alsager [1999] Fam 142, Re Blagdon Cemetery [2002] Fam 299, and other exhumation cases, determined that moving the remains of the baby simply so that they were nearer to where the petitioner now lived was not an exceptional reason for authorising an exhumation and he accordingly refused to grant a faculty.