Definition
In ecclesiastical law, to consecrate means to formally dedicate a person, place, or object to sacred purposes through prescribed religious ceremony. The term encompasses two principal legal applications:
1. Consecration of a bishop: The formal act by which a bishop or archbishop ordains another person to the episcopal office through the imposition of hands. This act was understood in English ecclesiastical law as the culminating and definitive step in the process of creating a bishop—distinct from and subsequent to election.
2. Consecration of a place: The formal dedication of a church, churchyard, or other physical space to sacred use through prescribed prayers and ceremony, typically performed by a bishop or archbishop. Once consecrated, such property acquired a recognized ecclesiastical status with legal consequences for its use, alienation, and governance under both canon law and, historically, English common law.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To declare something holy or make it holy by procedure; to ordain as a bishop; to commit oneself solemnly to some aim or task.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Consecrated; devoted; dedicated; sacred — as in "assembled in that consecrate place" (Bacon).
The common usage captures the general religious sense accurately enough, but misses the legal precision the term carries in ecclesiastical law. In legal contexts, consecration is not merely a spiritual act but a formal procedure with defined legal effects: it determines when episcopal authority vests, governs the status of property under canon and civil law, and triggers specific rights and disabilities. The casual sense of "dedicating" something to a purpose does not convey this procedural and jurisdictional weight.
Common Confusion
Consecration of a bishop is sometimes conflated with election or confirmation of a bishop, but these are legally distinct steps in a sequential process. English ecclesiastical law recognized election as the preliminary act and consecration as its completion and terminus — expressed in the Latin maxim recorded in Black's: Consecratio est periodus electionis; electio est præambula consecrationis ("Consecration is the termination of election; election is the preamble of consecration"). Authority did not fully vest until consecration was performed; election alone was insufficient.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in ecclesiastical law, church property disputes, or English legal history will encounter this term primarily in contexts where legal rights and obligations hinge on whether consecration has occurred. Three issues deserve attention:
First, the term governs property status. Consecrated ground in English law carried specific legal protections and restrictions traceable through both canon law and common law. Disputes over burial rights, church repairs, and the permissible use or sale of church property often turned on whether the site had been formally consecrated. Historical sources may treat consecration as a precondition to certain ecclesiastical jurisdiction attaching.
Second, in the episcopal succession context, the timing of consecration determined when a bishop acquired authority to act, ordain, and exercise jurisdiction. Researchers examining historical documents about the Church of England or colonial American Episcopal churches should be alert to this distinction between election and consecration when dating the vesting of episcopal powers.
Third, American researchers should note that the legal significance of consecration diminished substantially after disestablishment. Where English law embedded consecration into civil legal frameworks (property law, tithe law, ecclesiastical courts), American law generally treats the act as an internal religious matter beyond civil court review. Sources from the English tradition cannot be imported wholesale into American contexts without accounting for this structural shift.
Historical Dictionary Support
Both editions of Black's Law Dictionary are in close agreement, defining consecrate primarily within the ecclesiastical law frame and identifying the two principal applications — episcopal ordination and dedication of sacred places. The first edition is slightly more complete, preserving the Latin maxim from 2 Rolle 102 that links consecration to the completion of election. The second edition reproduces the definition with minor variation and no additional elaboration.
What neither edition addresses is the downstream legal consequence of consecration — the property law effects, the question of desecration or deconsecration, or the interaction between ecclesiastical consecration and civil title to church property. These gaps are significant for researchers, since much of the practical litigation involving consecrated property occurs at precisely the intersection of ecclesiastical status and civil property rights that Black's leaves unexplored.
Neither edition acknowledges the American post-disestablishment context, which is unsurprising given the English law orientation of early Black's editions but is a limitation researchers must compensate for independently.
Jurisdictional Note
In English law, consecration of churches and churchyards historically carried enforceable civil legal consequences, including restrictions on alienation and special rules for burial rights. In the United States, civil courts generally decline to adjudicate the validity or effect of religious consecration, treating it as an internal ecclesiastical matter. Researchers should not assume that legal consequences attached to consecration under English sources translate into American legal contexts.