The Church of England's General Synod met in London from February 9 to 13, 2026, and took three decisions of institutional weight: it approved a strategy for an independent national safeguarding charity, reapproved the Clergy Conduct Measure after Parliament demanded an open-justice amendment, and voted to conclude the Living in Love and Faith programme begun in 2017.
Safeguarding came first among equals. Per the Diocese in Europe's summary of the sessions, the Synod approved on February 11 a strategy whose centrepiece is a new national safeguarding charity operating outside the church's hierarchy and governed by a majority-independent board — the institutional answer to years of reviews that found the church could not police itself. The new Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally, confirmed in office on January 28, spoke in the debate and delivered her first presidential address to the Synod during the week.
On February 10 the Synod reapproved the Clergy Conduct Measure, a wholesale replacement of the clergy discipline framework in force since 2003, after Parliament required an amendment enshrining the principle of open justice in its procedures.
On February 13 the Synod backed a motion concluding the Living in Love and Faith programme and establishing new working and consultative groups to carry the questions forward. The Prayers of Love and Faith, in use since 2023 for same-sex couples, remain in regular use; the House of Bishops confirmed that so-called bespoke services for same-sex couples would require full formal authorisation under canon law. The settlement holds the line the bishops drew two years ago — prayers of thanksgiving and dedication, but no authorised marriage rite — leaving both those pressing for standalone services and those who hold the church's doctrine of marriage unchanged awaiting the new groups' work.
The Synod's other business ranged across the institution's breadth: a call on February 10 for a national covenant on adult social care, support on February 11 for mental-health training for ordinands and serving clergy, a February 12 recommitment to work on poverty forty years after Faith in the City, and a February 13 debate on working-class representation among clergy that heard progress described as real but incomplete.
Why it matters beyond the Church of England's pews: the safeguarding charity is one of the more complete surrenders of internal authority to external governance any national church has voted for itself, and the conclusion of Living in Love and Faith closes a six-year exercise without resolving the question it was created to examine. Both decisions will be cited, whatever comes next — by parishes, by Parliament, and by an Anglican Communion watching how the Church of England governs itself under a new archbishop.
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