ECCLESIASTICAL CORPORATION. A body corporate constituted of an ecclesiastical per son or persons and subject to eeclesiastieal judi catories. Ecclesiastical corporations are divided into corporations aggregate and corporations sole. The former consist of several persons—as, for ex ample. the head and fellows of a college, or the dean and chapter of a cathedral—and are per petuated a continuous succession of members. The latter consist of a single person and his suc cessors in a certain office—as, for example, a bishop or rector. By the law of England, the holder of an ecclesiastical benefice is regarded as a corporation. The object of the law in regard ing the incumbent of a benefice as a corporation sole is to preserve the temporalities vested in him, which would otherwise descend to his natural heirs. The right of a rector or other corporation sole to Church temporalities. although generally
spoken of as a freehold in law. is in fact prac tically nothing more than a tenancy for life. Such a corporation sole is entitled to the full en joyment of the benefice during his life, but he cannot sell it, and he is even punishable for Waste.
The corporation for religious purposes, as it has developed in American law, bears little re semblance to the ecclesiastical corporation of the English law; for while the objects for which they exist are much the same, the American body is purely a civil corporation and subject to the civil tribunals. Of recent .years provisions for the creation of ecclesiastical corporations sole have been introduced into the statutes of several States. See CORPORATION; CIVIL CHURCH LAw, ANIERICAN.