TIER 2 VISA - MINISTERS OF RELIGION
The minister of religion category is for people coming to the United Kingdom to work in a job as religious workers within a genuine (bona fide) religious organisation for up to three years.
The minister of religion category includes:
- preaching or performing pastoral duties;
- work as a missionary; or
- work in a religious order within a community which involves a permanent commitment like a monastery or convent.
Pastoral duties include:
- leading worship regularly and on special occasions;
- giving religious education to children and adults by preaching or teaching;
- officiating at marriages, funerals and other special services;
- offering counselling and welfare support to members of the congregation;
- recruiting, training and co-ordinating the work of any local volunteers and lay preachers.
Work as a missionary is not just preaching and teaching and can include:
- the organisation of missionary activity, but should not be administrative or clerical, unless filling a senior post;
- supervising staff;
- co-ordinating the organisation of missionary work;
- being in charge of a particular activity such as accounts/finance, personnel management or IT; or
- translating religious texts is missionary work not clerical work.
The work in a religious order must be in the order itself or outside work directed by the order.
Migrants should apply under the student category (tier 4 when it launches) if they are a member of a religious order and studying for a qualification, a formal full-time course of study or training in an academic institution not looked after by the order.
Working full-time as a teacher in a school run by a church or missionary organisation does not count as missionary work. Teachers must apply as a teacher under the sponsored skilled worker category (tier 2). See categories of skilled worker for more information.
If you want to apply for a licence under this category, you must be a genuine (bona fide) religious institution, which:
- is a registered, excepted or exempt United Kingdom charity according to the relevant charity legislation in force in its part of the United Kingdom, or is an ecclesiastical corporation (either corporation sole or body corporate) established for charitable purposes. In Northern Ireland the organisation must have got charitable status for tax purposes from HM Revenue and Customs. Charities who are not registered according to the relevant charity legislation must explain the reason for non-registration in their application for a sponsor licence; and
- include any religious belief or similar philosophical belief in something transcendental, metaphysical or ultimate;
- exclude any philosophical or political belief concerned with man, unless that belief is similar to religious belief; and
- does not exclude from its community on the basis of gender, nationality or ethnicity; and
- receives financial and material support for its core religious ministry from its congregation or community on a voluntary basis only, without promise or coercion; and
- does not breach, or encourage others to breach any United Kingdom legislation; and
- does not work against the public interest, or in a way that has a negative effect on personal or family life in the United Kingdom.
If you think we can help you with your immigration situation, contact us to make an appointment. Call 02080902408 (Office) / 07869286490 (Mobile)
or email info@systimesolutions.com or fill in the enquiry form.
|
| back |
