General Synod of the Church of England

The General Synod is the deliberative and legislative body of the Church of England. The synod was instituted in 1970, replacing the Church Assembly, and is the culmination of a process of rediscovering self-government for the Church of England that had started in the 1850s.

Church Assembly: 1919 to 1970

Before 1919, any change to the Church's worship or governance had to be by Act of Parliament, which resulted in little being done. In 1919, the Convocations of the Provinces of Canterbury and York adopted the constitution of the National Church Assembly proposed by the Representative Church Council and presented it to the King as an appendix to an address thus obtaining legal recognition of the Assembly.

By means of the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919 Parliament then gave the Assembly power to prepare Measures which, once presented to Parliament and approved by a special procedure (see below), were to "have the force and effect of an Act of Parliament" on "any matter concerning the Church of England", and included the power to repeal or amend Acts of Parliament concerning the Church. The preparation of such measures lay mainly with a joint Legislative Committee of the three houses of the Assembly and this Committee negotiated with the parliamentary Ecclesiastical Committee to reach an agreed form.