Professor Mark Hill QC is an adjunct professor at Cardiff University, Pretoria University, Notre Dame University Law School, Sydney and King’s College, London; and is a fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University, Atlanta. He practices at the Bar in London and sits as a judge on the Midland Circuit.

The vast majority of scholars of law and religion tend to focus on the interface between church and state. This is unsurprising. From the medieval philosophers to the present day, the respective spheres of the spiritual and the secular authorities have been the subject of contest and engagement. These are matters upon which I have written and lectured over the past thirty years. But I have long been intrigued by the internal laws of religious organizations, which led me to write my definitive textbook Ecclesiastical Law on the law of the Church of England, now in its fourth edition. The Church of England is unusual, being established by law as a state church. Its laws (Measures) have the same status as Acts of Parliament [1].