Professor Norman Doe KC, LLD, FBA

Norman is from the Rhondda, and is Professor of Law at Cardiff University. He is also honorary King’s Counsel; Master of the Bench, Inner Temple London; Chancellor, Diocese of Bangor; Fellow of the British Academy and studied at University College Cardiff, Magdalene College, Cambridge, and Mansfield College, Oxford. He holds the degrees of: LLB, LLM (Wales), PhD (Cambridge), DCL (Lambeth), MTh (Oxford), LLD (Cambridge), and Barrister (Middle Temple).

On ecclesiastical law, he has authored 10 books, edited over 20, and authored some 200 book chapters and journal articles. His book Canon Law in the Anglican Communion (Oxford, 1998) was the basis for The Principles of Canon Law Common to the Churches of the Anglican Communion (Anglican Communion Legal Advisers Network 2008, revised 2022). His book Christian Law (Cambridge, 2013) was the basis for the Statement of Principles of Christian Law issued by the Ecumenical Christian Law Panel and launched at the 11th Assembly of the World Council of Churches in 2022. Stage One of his report on the Faculty System of the Church in Wales was accepted by vote at the Governing Body of the Church in Wales in September 2024. His community play, Thrice to Rome (2023), on the hearings of Gerald of Wales (d. 1223) at the Papal Court of Innocent III (1200-03), has been performed at St Davids Cathedral, Temple Church London, Canterbury, Rome (Supreme Tribunal of the Pope), and The Cornerstone, Cardiff.

He has been a member of or consultant to the Legal Advisory Commission (Church of England), Lambeth Commission, Anglican Communion Legal Advisers Network, Lambeth Conference, and Anglican Covenant Design Group. He has also been President, European Consortium for Church and State Research (2010), professeur associé at Paris University (1999-2023), and a visiting fellow/scholar at 6 Oxbridge colleges. He is director of the LLM in Canon Law at Cardiff University, a Reader for The Queen Elizabeth Prizes for Education, a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at St Stephen’s House, Oxford, a Council member Selden Society, and a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales, Royal Historical Society, British Academy, Society of Antiquaries, and Ecclesiastical Law Society (the second such fellow, the first was Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew).

In 2016 he was honoured with a festschrift: F. Cranmer, M. Hill, C. Kenny and R. Sandberg, eds., The Confluence of Law and Religion: Interdisciplinary Reflections on the Work of Norman Doe (Cambridge University Press, 2016). He was one of five in 2024 to be made honorary King’s Counsel for his contribution to the field of ecclesiastical law. In the Research Handbook on Law and Religion, edited by Rex Adhar (Elgar, 2018), he was listed in the ‘top ten’ law and religion scholars worldwide - at number 10.