A PRIEST who left the Church of England to affix the Free Church of England (FCE) has had his licence revoked, 13 months after being received into his recent ministry.
The Revd Brett Murphy, who was ordained within the Anglican Church of Australia and later served within the dioceses of Carlisle and Leicester, was received into the ministry of the FCE and licensed as Presbyter-in-Charge of Emmanuel Church, Morecambe, on 9 July 2023.
In an announcement on a web-based fundraising page (“Save the Murphy Family from Homelessness!”) published last month, Mr Murphy said that on 9 August he had been “dismissed with immediate effect from the Free Church of England, and my licence was revoked following a disciplinary meeting through which many false accusations were made against me”. He described being “persecuted time and time again for bravely speaking God’s truth and making a stand for righteousness, putting my head above the battlements, exposing corruption throughout the Church and calling false teachers to repent”.
The FCE has not commented on Mr Murphy’s account of his dismissal. An announcement issued on its website on 21 August said: “We are committed to making sure that matters of Church discipline are addressed appropriately, and we imagine that such matters shouldn’t be judged by public opinion or debated on social media. Our priority is to uphold the integrity of this process for all involved.
“While there have been personal attacks and misinformation circulating, particularly towards the Bishop Primus, we decide not to have interaction in public disputes, as doing so would compromise the trust placed in us to handle this case responsibly.”
On Thursday of last week, a web-based statement from the FCE Central Trust executive council said that services at Emmanuel had been suspended “until such time because the Custodian Trustees may be assured that services might be conducted with proper dignity”. On the previous three Sunday, they wrote, services had been “deliberately disrupted”.
On Monday, the churchwardens of Emmanuel, Michael Sheriff and Katerina Murphy, said that Mr Murphy had been “unfairly dismissed from Emmanuel Church without consultation with our church council” and that a petition calling for his return had been established. They refuted the suggestion that the congregation had been “disrupting” services. “Emmanuel Church is open for worship,” they said. “We haven’t stopped worshipping and we won’t stop worshipping.”
Mr Murphy, who got here to England from Australia in 2019 to take a post within the diocese of Carlisle, was appointed Vicar of Broom Leys, within the diocese of Leicester, in 2021. In May 2023, a variety of allegations of misconduct were lodged against him. and dealt inside under the Clergy Discipline Measure. These included complaints about remarks he made concerning the Archdeacon of Bolton and Salford, the Ven. Dr Rachel Mann, who’s transgender, in a video that he posted on YouTube. Earlier this yr, the President of Tribunals ruled that, although the remarks were “arguably highly insensitive”, Mr Murphy had no case to reply (News, 5 April).
Mr Murphy resigned from his post in 2023, announcing on his YouTube channel that he had “walked away from the apostasy, the corruption, and the heresy” of the Church of England.
On his fund-raising page, Mr Murphy writes that he’s appealing against his dismissal, with the support of Christian Concern and the Christian Legal Centre. In response to an appeal to assist Mr Murphy secure a house and income, donors have contributed £141,000. In an update on 27 August, he wrote that he had found the “perfect house”, including room for a YouTube studio.
In a recent YouTube video, he listed himself alongside John Knox and Archbishop Cranmer as a victim of persecution. “Somehow by some incredible windfall of God I even have ended up probably the most distinguished voices within the Anglican World on social media so it’s to be expected that I’d attract opposition,” he said.
