YORK, England — After nearly 40 years of debate, the Church of England has finally decided that divorced people with a surviving spouse may be remarried in the church under certain circumstances.
The church’s General Synod voted 269–83 to affirm that marriage should always be undertaken as a “solemn, public and lifelong covenant between a man and a woman” but conceded that some marriages fail and that there are “exceptional circumstances” in which a divorced person might have a second marriage in church.
The church will leave the choice of remarriage up to the vicar or rector of the parish. The synod decisively voted down a move to set up a system of diocesan or regional panels to decide whether applications for a church wedding should be granted.
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