THE fallout over the return to work of the Bishop of Aberdeen & Orkney, the Rt Revd Anne Dyer, meant that this week’s meeting of the Scottish Episcopal Church’s (SEC’s) General Synod had been “assailed by words even before we gathered”, members were told on Thursday.
Bishop Dyer is attending the Synod, having returned to work after a protracted suspension (News, 3 October 2022). Accusations of bullying were expected to be tested in a tribunal, however the Church’s Procurator, Paul Reid KC, decided to drop the case (News, 11 October 2024).
In his ruling, Mr Reid wrote: “I remain of the view that there may be sufficient evidence to offer a sensible prospect of conviction in respect of every allegation.” As his reason to not proceed, nonetheless, he cited the harm that it’d cause to the alleged victims.
The Church’s other bishops initially supported the choice, but, inside days, 4 of them in a letter called on Bishop Dyer to contemplate her position (News, 17 October 2024) — an intervention that she described in her response as “un-Christian” (News, 18 October 2024).
As Bishop Dyer began a phased return to work, criticism of the method continued. Both complainants against Bishop Dyer and the Church’s Primus, the Most Revd Mark Strange, have written to congregations (News, 15 May).
Bishop Dyer has been present throughout this week’s meeting of the Synod in Edinburgh, and chaired a session on Friday morning. She was approached for comment, but declined to be interviewed.
Later on Friday, a lay member from the diocese of Aberdeen & Orkney, Dr Stephen Goodyear, asked questions on the termination of the method during a debate in regards to the SEC’s budget and accounts.
Dr Goodyear has been a signatory to letters critical of the SEC’s safeguarding and disciplinary processes in relation to Bishop Dyer.
Asked about budgeting for legal costs, the outgoing convener of the Standing Committee, Bridget Campbell, acknowledged that “there are further complaints that may require money to be spent on them.”
Accounts published last 12 months showed that £325,000 had been spent on legal and other fees related to the investigation since 2022, and that an additional £175,000 had been budgeted for 2024 — expenditure that this 12 months’s accounts shows rose to £210,000.
Dr Goodyear also asked Ms Campbell whether the SEC could give a “yes or no answer” to the query whether the allegations against Bishop Dyer were true.
The SEC’s safeguarding policy required that the “truth or otherwise” of allegations be determined, he said, drawing on wording in the rules to the Anglican Communion Safe Church Charter, to which the SEC is a signatory.
Owing to Mr Reid’s decision to terminate the method and not using a tribunal, this requirement didn’t appear to have been satisfied, he said, and so the one way through which the annual report’s statement that “the Canon 54 process had been followed” might be accurate could be if Ms Campbell could confirm the reality or otherwise of allegations against Bishop Dyer.
Without this information, the annual report was incorrect, Dr Goodyear argued, and members should, subsequently, vote against the motion accepting it.
Ms Campbell said that Mr Reid’s decision not to guide evidence was accepted by the clergy discipline tribunal, and so the legal matters had “reached a conclusion”. Her response received a round of applause.
In a vote of the entire Synod, 106 voted in favour of the motion, three against, with nine recorded abstentions.
THE controversy over Bishop Dyer’s return to work had been explicitly addressed within the opening items of business because the Synod began the day past.
“This Synod, greater than most, has been assailed by words even before we gathered this morning,” the Bishop of Edinburgh, Dr John Armes, said in a brief address reminding members to concentrate on the tone of their conversations.
“Perhaps it’s inevitable, this being the primary General Synod since a major Canon 54 [disciplinary] process regarding Aberdeen and Orkney reached its conclusion,” he said.
“When individuals are hurting and indignant, or after they’re stuffed with crusading zeal, perhaps they don’t at all times fully consider the implications of their words or the impact they might have on those that receive them.”
Dr Armes suggested that “relentless accusations aimed toward Synod staff or the Provincial Standing Committee or individual members of the College of Bishops could be experienced by those recipients as every bit as harassing and bullying because the behaviours they’re intended to reveal.” This behaviour was not, nonetheless, “accountable to the identical canonical processes as those properly and legally concluded back in October”.
He suggested: “One of the essential things we learn as we grow up as human beings, never mind as Christians, is that it is feasible to be each right and improper at the identical time. The requirement to be faithful, for instance, may not at all times align with the requirement to be loving, or a determination to stay firmly to our moral scruples may not at all times allow space for us to construct real peace and friendship.”
Earlier, Bishop Strange, who can be the Bishop of Moray, Ross & Caithness, had focused his opening address on constructing and rebuilding relationships across divides.
He spoke a couple of recent visit to a former SEC missionary church in Chandrapur, India, and conversations with the Archbishop in Jerusalem, Dr Hosam Naoum. He also referred to an forthcoming Synod debate on the Saint Ninian Declaration of friendship with the Roman Catholic Church.
“We also have to work on our relationships with one another. The purpose of Synod is to get business done, but additionally it is the chance to spend time together, discovering latest friends and rekindling old ones,” Bishop Strange said.
