Deprivation
Deprivation the act of taking away from an ecclesiastic any benefice or other spiritual preferment which he may hold (see Canon 122 Church of England). "In England this may be done either
(1) by a sentence declaratory in the proper court, on the ground of attainder or conviction of treason, felony, or any other infamous crime, or of conviction for heresy, infidelity, or gross immorality, or for farming or trading contrary to law, I and 2 Vict. c. 106, s. 31; or
(2) in pursuance of divers penal statutes, which declare the benefice void for some nonfeasance or neglect, or else some malfeasance or crime, as simony; for maintaining any doctrine in derogation of the king's supremacy, or of the Thirty-nine Articles, or the Book of Common Prayer; for neglecting to read the liturgy and articles in the church, and to declare assent to the same, within two months after induction; for using any other form of prayer than the liturgy of the Church of England; for continued neglect, after order from the bishop, followed by sequestration, to reside on the benefice. In these latter cases the benefice is void without any formal sentence of deprivation (Stephen's Comment. 3, 37). A bishop may be deprived of his bishopric, but cannot be deposed, the character of a bishop, like that of a priest, being indelible. The tribunal by which the bishop of Clogher was deprived in 1822 consisted of the archbishop and the other bishops of the province; and this precedent having been established, would probably be adhered to on any future occasion, notwithstanding that the archbishop alone might have full authority to deprive" (Cripps's Laws of the Church, p. 100). SEE DEGRADATION; SEE DEPOSITION.
