THE Diocesan Chancellor of the Gloucester, the Worshipful June
Rodgers, sent out a strong message to Church of England clergy,
churchwardens, parishioners, auctioneers, and antique dealers that
they should not buy or sell any item belonging to a church unless
they were sure that a faculty had been obtained from the diocesan
chancellor, authorising the sale of the item in question.
The necessity of making the proper enquiries had been reiterated
time and again in various judgments of ecclesiastical courts, she
said, but it appeared to be consistently ignored by both churches
and the antiques trade.
Any purchaser from a C of E church must ensure that the item was
accompanied by a faculty, and no other "paperwork" or verbal
assurances from the church, purporting to give permission to sell,
would suffice, she said. Without a faculty, the property that a
purchaser purported to have bought still belonged to the church
from which it came; so the purchaser did not have ownership of
it.
Disposal of church property without a faculty was akin to theft,
the Chancellor said, and she would have no hesitation in involving
the police if it were necessary to ensure that the property was
recovered.
The Chancellor's warning was issued in the course of a hearing
concerning the sale of a painting from Emmanuel Church in
Leckhampton, Cheltenham. The Revd Jacqueline Rodwell, a
non-stipendiary minister with pastoral responsibility for the
church, said that her predecessor at the church had been of an
Anglo-Catholic background, and not, as she was, Evangelical.
In about 1949, relatives were clearing out the home of a local
couple, Thomas and Emily Bolland, who had died in 1946 and 1949
respectively. Among the items to be disposed of was a painting of
the Madonna and Child, Mary, Queen of Heaven, by Franz
Ittenbach (1813-79), a German Nazarene painter associated with the
Düsseldorf school. His paintings have been sold at Sotheby's and
other auctioneers for prices ranging from $27,500 to $64,000.
The painting was given to the church by the Bollands' relatives.
Mrs Rodwell said that the painting was "deemed to be theologically
inappropriate for the church", and was placed in a position where
nobody but the presiding priest could see it. She said that nobody
remembered the Bolland family, and that there was nobody local with
that name.
The painting was moved in 2013 to accommodate a junction box,
was left in the vestry, and then consigned to the junk store. It
was proposed that the church should "just chuck it out with all the
rest of the junk", but Mrs Rodwell thought that the church "might
get some money for it".
In July 2013, Mrs Rodwell informed the churchwardens of the
proposed sale, and one of them raised the issue whether a faculty
should be obtained. That query was not taken further, however, and
an auctioneer was contacted. Mrs Rodwell later denied that the term
"faculty" had been mentioned, and had no idea that she had been
told that a faculty was needed.
The auctioneer initially valued the painting at about £1000, but
later revised the valuation, and, in the auctioneer's catalogue,
£3000 to £4000 was estimated as a possible price for the painting.
It was sold at auction on 28 October 2013 for a price of £20,000,
to a London dealer.
By chance, the Archdeacon of Cheltenham, the Ven. Robert
Springett, was visiting the church in December 2013, when he had a
"rather horrid surprise" on being told for the first time of the
sale of the painting, and the plans the parish had for spending the
proceeds of the sale. The Archdeacon asked the parish for full
details about what had happened, and immediate efforts were made to
trace the painting, and find out whether it had left the
country.
The DAC contacted the auctioneers, and, by then, the purchaser
had already paid for the painting - and had spent more than £4000
on restoring it. Nevertheless, the purchaser gave an undertaking
that he would not sell the painting until the Consistory Court had
heard the application by Mrs Rodwell and the churchwardens for a
retrospective confirmatory faculty authorising the sale of the
painting.
The Chancellor, having heard all the evidence, said that the
conduct of Mrs Rodwell and the churchwardens had been "dismal", and
"really, really stupid", but they had not been dishonest. In their
"misguided way" they supposed that they were acting for the good of
the church. The auction was fair; an open market-price had been
achieved; and the purchaser had acted honourably.
In the absence of any findings of dishonesty, the Chancellor
said that it would not further the mission of the Church to order
Mrs Rodwell, or the churchwardens, to pay the costs of the
Consistory Court litigation personally. A confirmatory faculty was
granted, authorising the sale of the painting, and it was declared
that the purchaser, who had bought the painting in good faith, now
had good title to it so that he could retain or dispose of it as he
thought fit.
The Chancellor directed that her conclusions were circulated to
various auctioneer and trade bodies, so that they were put on
notice that no item from a consecrated building was to be sold,
given away, or disposed of without a faculty, and that no private
or trade purchaser obtained good title to any church property
without a faculty authorising its disposal to the secular
world.
Read the judgment in full here (PDF - will open in new
window)