§ 30. Mr. John Hayasked the Attorney-General whether he is aware that an organisation styled the Spiritual Court of 626 the Metropolitan of Thyatira, 8, Dawson Place, Bayswater, issues, for payment, documents purporting to be decrees of divorce and which authorises the person receiving the same to re-marry; that a number of people have subsequently remarried thereafter incorrectly believing themselves free to do so; what is the status of this body; whether its claim to grant decrees of divorce is recognised by His Majesty's Government; and what action is being taken about the matter.
§ The Attorney-GeneralAs a full reply to this Question is necessarily very long, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
I ought, however, to say at once that the Metropolitan of Thyatira, is the representative in London of the Head of the Orthodox Church, and, as such, is fully entitled to grant decrees of divorce to persons not domiciled in this country when their domestic law recognises divorces by the Orthodox Church. The difficulties to which my hon. Friend refers arose from a change of law in Poland.
§ Mr. HayWhile I appreciate my right hon. and learned Friend's difficulty in answering the Question at length at this stage, may I ask if he can assure the House that he has fully presented the continuance of the previous unsatisfactory position which had arisen? Can he say at this stage what action he proposes to take to regularise the position of those people who received divorce decrees and subsequently re-married?
§ The Attorney-GeneralI can say, quite shortly, that I know of no such case since 1948. So far as cases between 1945 and 1948 are concerned, an investigation is now being made to see how many there are and how they can be dealt with.
Following is the statement:The Metropolitan of Thyatira is the fully authorised representative in London of the Oecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, who is the head of the Orthodox Church. He presides over a Spiritual Court which issues ecclesiastical divorces to Orthodox Christians. These are of two kinds:Divorce granted to Orthodox Christians domiciled in England are given by the Spiritual Court only after a civil divorce has already been granted by an English Court and amount to permission to remarry according to the law of the Orthodox Church. I am not aware that any difficulty has arisen in regard to this.627Divorces are also granted by the Spiritual Court to Orthodox Christians domiciled abroad and it is here that difficulty has arisen. If the domestic law recognises ecclesiastical divorces, the divorce granted by the Spiritual Court is valid here; but after 31st December, 1945, a new Polish marriage law came into operation which no longer recognised the validity of divorces granted by the Ecclesiastical Courts. This information was not made available at the time to the Registrars-General in England and Scotland, who continued to allow a remarriage to proceed where evidence was given of Polish domicile and of an ecclesiastical divorce.In 1948, however, information of this new Polish marriage law was received by the Registrars-General of England and Scotland, as a result of which instructions were sent to Superintendent Registrars to withhold certificates and licences in such cases.I am not aware of any case of remarriage under these circumstances since 1948, but if my hon. Friend has any information to the contrary and will let me have it I will look into the matter at once.As regards cases in which marriage took place under this misapprehension between 1946 and 1948 (of which the case of Brachmanska v. Brachmanska heard in the High Court on 24th October, 1951, is an example), investigations are now being made to see how many cases are involved and how they can best be dealt with.