The Rt Revd Anne Dyer, Bishop of Aberdeen & Orkney, has announced that she will retire in February 2027 when she reaches the Scottish Episcopal Church’s retirement age of 70. Details are in this press release: Bishop Anne Dyer to retire after nine years in Aberdeen & Orkney.
There will be much healing to be done in this Diocese, and there has been a vacuum of leadership as well as dysfunctional leadership. The Diocese is fabulous! I have worked there briefly, and it is so rich and diverse and brooding with potential. From Aberdeen granite, to Orkney outposts, It deserves a healer, pastor, and someone with vision and creativity. I hope they can get their act together and have someone in place by the end of the year.
I too lived in Aberdeen, for nearly 20 years. I frequently miss it. I attended St Andrew’s Cathedral. I particularly remember the visit there by Archbishop George Carey in 1999.
The Scottish Episcopal Church’s Canonical procedures for electing (not appointing) a Diocesan Bishop do not allow the process to be rushed and they do not allow a new Bishop to be elected to a Diocese before the current Bishop has demitted Office by Retirement. Within 21 days of a Bishop retiring the Primus will issue a Mandate to the Dean of the Diocese (equiverlent to the English Archdeacon) instructing the Diocese to proceed with the election of a New Bishop. This is done in 3 stages, there is first a preparatory meeting, which leads to a Statement of needs being… Read more »
This will come to many as good news in the diocese. Much hurt has happened and now a time of healing can begin/resume in that diocese.
Bishop Anne will leave that place with a mixed legacy.
I pray for her successor that they will enable much healing to happen in that beautiful diocese that I call my home town.
You’d never guess from the official announcement that there had been any problems at all. All sweetness and light, of course.
Without commenting on the situation in question about which I know little and couldn’t venture any opinion, whenever anyone remotely controversial departs any post we should bear in mind the dictum of Dean Inge – ‘De mortuis, nihil nisi bunkum.’
There was a ‘not the nine o’clock news’ sketch on that theme, I recall, where in the midst of a heated debate a politician is taken suddenly to his reward, whereupon the vitriol ceases and is transformed into eulogy. The papers did a similar thing on the demise of Oswald Mosely.
Whatever the legacies of the retiring bishop, Aberdeen is ranked as one of the most secular cities in the UK and attendance figures across denominations are low. My daughter – a regular communicant- spent 5 years researching and teaching at Aberdeen ini and found it very difficult to find a church which she could call home.
I was an academic at the University of Aberdeen for 19 years. There were plenty of Episcopal churches close to the University. The closest is St Ninian’s Seaton. There is obviously St Andrew’s Cathedral. There is St James Holburn Junction. These are all close to the University. There are (or were) several ‘Honorary Denominational Chaplains’ at the University of Aberdeen including one for Episcopal students.
St Andrews Cathedral has been closed for years
At Andrews Cathedral is still open and is a growing church until the Provost Isaac Pobalan. I was there about 18 months ago and it has grown massively.
A quick Google search reveals their times of services and livestream broadcasts. That must be difficult if it’s closed
OK. I think its role was transferred to St Mary’s Carden Place.
This is pasted from Wikipedia.
The cathedral reopened for worship on Sunday, 5 December 2021, with an inaugural service of Advent Carols. The congregation continues to gather for worship on Sundays at 10.45am and on Thursdays at 10am.
I was back on a visit almost exactly three years ago, and it was in use then.
St Andrews Carhedral Aberdeen is not closed. It has a lively multi cultural worshipping community. Attendance of 80 adults and 20+ children most Sunday mornings.
Is Isaac still the Provost? If so please pass along my warmest regards.
Saint Andrews Episcopal Cathedral, Aberdeen. Statistics are as follows. uSa or weekly Sunday attendance is about 80+ adult communicants. Typically there are another 30+ younger communicants and around 30+ younger children. The Sunday School also thrives, and the robed choir has about two dozen who are mostly young Nigerian women. Around 60% of the congregation come from Africa, 15% from South Asia, with the remainder European and/or Scots. It’s probably the most ethnically diverse Anglican cathedral in the UK. It livestreams every week. By attendance, there is probably no larger Anglican congregation in the diocese. The theological ethos is broad… Read more »
The cathedral building on King Street temporarily closed due to compounding structural issues, an inadequate heating system, and pandemic-related financial strains. Services were temporarily moved to St Mary’s Episcopal Church on Carden Place.
December 2021: The congregation successfully returned to the building, marking the official reopening with an Advent Carols service.
A terrible legacy of division and decline, with the bishops who imposed her on the diocese chiefly to blame. How msny ministries were devastated by her?
Please God that the SEC bishops will recognise the importance of Cyprian’s consensus fidelium in the next appointment- and hear and heed the voice of the Spirit in the life, witness and views of the folk of the Diocese. Let the past be the past, and the future for the work of the Kingdom
Bp.Anne’s tenure of Office has been very troubled and dysfunctional. Many people have been deeply wounded as a consequence of this and by the failure of the other SEC Bishops to act with courage and insight. I doubt that many will miss her. Altogether a sorrowful and badly handled matter.
A good example of how unity as a sociological project falls apart. Everyone stands on their rights, no one is accountable, and certainly not the bishop. Everyone else to to blame.
I’m not sure what this has to do with “unity as a sociological project”. Dysfunction in the diocese resulting in a failure to elect, followed by dysfunction in the College of Bishops both in selecting a candidate who was unsuitable for the diocese (and who dealt extremely badly with the resulting hostility) and in botching the process that should reasonably have led to her removal.
The Church in Wales managed to turn around a broken situation in Bangor. That centred on mismanagement at the Cathedral and led to the resignation of the diocesan bishop who was also the archbishop of the province. Wise and honest leadership and no doubt much prayer and heartbreak helped. I hope the wonderful diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney can find equal healing.
The Church in Wales is a long way from turning around the broken situation in Bangor – cathedral and diocese – although the immediate crisis was dealt with by the forced resignation of the bishop. But the news from Aberdeen raises the very important question of how the Church can deal with a bishop who is clearly undermining the diocese. One thinks of Andrew John and Joanna Penberthy in Wales, Tim Dakin in England and Anne Dyer in Scotland. Other names might well come to mind – including Justin Welby. What is particularly sad about what has happened in Aberdeen… Read more »
Unlike the C of E with the absurdity of transferring the Channel Islands to a different diocese because they couldn’t get on with the Bishop of Winchester. Only to find Hampshire couldn’t either.
The irony at Winchester wasn’t lost on us. Centuries of history compromised by stubborn men, the easy way out taken and allowed to go through on the nod at
General Synod. But it seems the Channel Islanders are happy with the new arrangements.
And recent announcement of Matthew Tick as the new Dean of Guernsey will make them even happier!
In centuries to come the story of the Channel Islands swapping dioceses will still be told, and people will be struck and amused by the irony. Very few, if any, of Dakin’s colleagues will be remembered at all.
No idea what this is about! The interim solution was to place the Channel Islands under the Bishop of Dover within the Diocese of Canterbury while Bob Key was Dean and Tim Dakin was Bishop as a measure to take away the heat. Bob Key then commissioned a report (I still have the PDF) to look at options which discarded Salisbury as an option because he didn’t like the Bishop’s theology, and pushed for Canterbury. He also brought in a new Jersey Canon Law which excluded female Bishops which I suspect was deliberate again to fit his theology. Bob Key’s… Read more »
I don’t normally say this kind of thing, but the ancient see of Winchester was let down by Cantuar and Richard Chartres whose report recommended the move. Cantuar ducked the issue which he should have dealt with personally. Richard Chartres is strong enough to have banged heads together, and that should have been done. It was a fudge, but as stated in my earlier comment, it seems that the Channel Islanders and Salisbury are happy with the arrangement. An interesting ‘twist’ is that Gavin Ashenden briefly had an incumbency (or otherwise ministered as an Anglican) in Jersey while Tim Dakin… Read more »
Does BSL in your comment stand for British Sign Language?
Tom Kitten you seem to have applied a somewhat broad and inaccurate brush to the statement you make about Bishops Penberthy, John, Dakin and Dyer. Bp Penberthy’s error is not in any way in the same league at all as the dysfunction of Bp.Dyer who did and does undermine her diocese, Bp Dakin who made a complete mess and Bp.John whose mess was focussed on the Cathedral while the repercussions from this have far wider implications because he was also Archbishop of Wales.
You refer to Bishop Penberthy’s ”error”, presumably thinking of her unwise expression of her rather extreme left-wing political opinions. But although not at all an unpleasant person, I can testify that she was a disaster as bishop of St Davids, a disaster inflicted on the diocese from without – as, of course, was Anne Dyer. Andrew John was a pretty useless bishop of Bangor before things came to a head with the Sion Rhys Evans fiasco in Bangor cathedral. How much worse he was as archbishop of Wales than his predecessors after the time of Rowan Williams is an interesting… Read more »
Your final question is a very interesting one. ‘Badly or not at all’ would be my answer. In the vast majority of cases, particularly where there’s no public scandal of one kind or another, they’re endured until they retire. This emphasises for me the disparity in how issues in the different ranks of clergy are addressed. Among the rank and file, while I have no time at all for congregation lynch mobs, enough of a groundswell can very easily unseat an incumbent. A CDM is also a fairly straightforward way to pursue grievances at that level. But for the pointy… Read more »
The CDM is no more, replaced by the Clergy Conduct Measure 2026 except for those cases where an existing CDM is in progress and will continue – I believe there are some relating to the John Smyth case. The CCM introduces different and distinct categories of complaint: grievance, misconduct and serious misconduct. I haven’t checked commencement dates. Doubtless there will be a teething period for the new procedures.
Yes indeed, and doubtless there will also be a continuation of 2-tier justice – one for serving Bishops and one for the rest of the clergy. Too many people who are too wedded to being part of the status quo of the ecclesiastical establishment find their way onto the panels who consider these cases (unsurprising since all who are not in the senior judicial roles have to be nominated by their Diocesan Bishops) and too few who have both the appropriate knowledge and nothing to lose or gain from the recommendation of Bishops.
I will have another look at the CCM to check whether procedures have changed for complaints relating to bishops. It certainly has filled several gaps in the old CDM, one particular example being the practical impossibility of bringing a CDM against both Archbishops, as one TA contributor wished to do. Also, the suspect delegation of a CDM to another bishop. Both ‘loopholes’ now closed, although not the extent of reform I suspect you would wish.
The threat of a vote of no confidence seemed sufficient in Winchester
I think we are in danger of getting into more shark infested waters here. As a victim of the Dakin regime, he is one of the reasons I refer myself as a Homeless Anglican, because that is that is how he (and some of his team) made me me feel. All I would say is that i think that the episcopal discernment process is learning from its mistakes. That is a good thing. It might not make for exciting appointments, but at least it makes for safe and healing ones. I wish no ill on any of those who have… Read more »
Please can we move on.. “nothing to see here”!
Not trusting the Conservative and Unionist Party and its members maybe an unwise statement of position for a Bishop but it is hardly extreme. At worst it’s slightly hyperbolic.
I suggest that you need to listen to the address by Josh Maynard which is available at http://www.aceanglicans.org and the account he gives of multiple complaints, the frequent retweeting of obscenities, and the allegations of ungenerous and unkind behaviour is pretty devastating. I don’t think it can be written off lightly.
Overall we might do better to focus on who has been inspiring and encouraging in their episcopal ministry rather than trying to deny to obvious failures of less successful bishops. But please don’t suggest there were just a few minor errors.
Of course I’m sure that a schismatic splinter group will give a fair and balanced view of a female CofE bishop.
In any case, I made no comment on the Bishop’s behaviour generally, only on the obviously spurious claim of “extreme left-wing political opinions”. But, frankly, if you have to reach for reposting other people’s use of words you find vulgar for ammunition then it sounds like your case is pretty weak.
The recording is of an address delivered in a parish church in Wales by a serving ordained minister of the Church in Wales, not a schismatic splinter group.
The reported behavioural failings of too many senior people in holy orders, all supposedly carefully/prayerfully selected for their many qualities, reminds me that that friend in publishing once told me that Romance Writers conventions were absolute nightmares of infighting & backstabbing, whereas those for Crime Writers were fine, indeed the more gory & violent the crime novel, the nicer the writer turned out to be, and they all seemed to get on.
I once heard it suggested that people who attend kink conventions are amongst the most polite and charming people one could hope to meet. Perhaps the Church could learn a thing or two from them…