Funeral celebrant Funeral celebrant Funeral celebrant is a formal term denoting members of a group of non-clergy professionals who are committed to preparing and delivering high quality funeral ceremonies, which are not closely linked to any religion or to belief in an after-life. The concept of funeral celebrants is analogous in Western countries to that of civil celebrants (for marriages). It began in Australia in 1975. On 19 July 1973 the Australian attorney-general Lionel Murphy had appointed civil marriage celebrants with the aim of creating ceremonies of substance and meaning for non-church people. As secular (civil) marriage ceremonies became accepted, first in
Celebrant (Australia) of "marriage celebrant". In this same month a series of legal and administrative changes to the civil celebrant program were put into effect by the Australian Government. Attorney-General Daryl Williams, who left the Australian Parliament in mid-term had, just before he resigned, approved a number of radical changes to the Marriage Act and the Regulations under the Act (Section 39 as it was, and after 2003). The most important of these was the legal transfer of powers over the program from the Attorney-General to an appointed public servant titled "The Registrar".). The program, from its beginnings in 1973 had always