See our earlier report here.
The bishop issued this statement on 9 October: Pastoral letter to the Diocese from the Bishop.
The Church Times reported this on 17 October: Four Scottish bishops urge Dyer to consider her position
And then this on 18 October: ‘No prospect’ of my resigning, writes Bishop Dyer after pressure is applied
The full text of the four bishops’ statement can be seen here.
The statement from the four bishops seems to suggest that they are communicating with +Anne through her lawyers. What warm and collegial relationships the bishops of the SEC must have.
The self-awareness being demonstrated here is staggering.
I totally agree! The utter lack of emotional intelligence and spatial/relational awareness of what is happening is bewildering and she chooses to fight her corner in this way?
I can imagine her greeting next Sunday morning with a “The Lord be with you”.. and receiving some rather select responses.. “Nae” would be the best!
And lets be honest, she has not exactly led/turned around/created a growing and flourishing diocese for a rousing response or proved and demonstrated in any way that she has the gifts of an episcopal lead into the future. I am left wondering… Who is advising her?
Look, this is a deeply distressing saga for all involved. Finger pointing doesn’t help. Both (or is it all) sides clearly believe they are entirely right in their actions. I simply note that though + Anne is abroad, according to her lawyers, she can (apparently) nonetheless say what she is going to do, while being unavailable for discussion with episcopal colleagues. None of this is creditable. But as we see in Ukraine and in Palestine, if you believe absolutely that you are right, peace is unattainable. And there is no such thing as ‘winning’, only a desolation which we may… Read more »
And I’ve just withdrawn from a post in the SEC as a direct result of this lot.
Who’d ever want to serve with that lot of vipers?
The C of E House and College of Bishops are every bit as bad – there are just more of them so the power dynamics and dysfunction among them aren’t quite so obvious and quick moving.
According to Wikipedia, attendance in the diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney was 725 in December 2022; it is probably smaller now. Why does it even need a bishop?
Anne Dyer has just over 2 years to go until she reaches retirement age. What does she hope to achieve after a 2 year absence?
Her retirement followed by the merger of the diocese with one or more neighbouring dioceses is the obvious solution.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diocese_of_Aberdeen_and_Orkney
I see a membership number of about 2400 but I could be mid reading
But I do agree, it seems very unlikely she’ll achieve much within 2 years.
4 Dioceses of the SEC. Moray, Brechin. Aberdeen, and Argyle/Isles = 1400 attendance total for all four.
All the dioceses could be merged given the tiny attendance. Aberdeen isn’t unusually small. Brechin? St Andrews, Dunkeld, Dunblane?
On:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66zv-nuQLcQ
there is a pictorial record of a visit by Ambassador Joseph Kennedy to St Andrew’s Cathedral Aberdeen to unveil a memorial to Bishop Seabury. That was in 1938. When I lived in Aberdeen I spoke to an Aberdonian lady who could remember the event and told me that the Ambassador’s son John, later President, was at the time visiting his father in the UK and accompanied him to Aberdeen.
It would be a huge geographical area for a bishop or archdeacon to cover, and travel is not easy for much of it.
The medieval bishops of Lincoln managed something similar when the roads were even worse, and they didn’t have phones or the internet. But in those days I guess the parish clergy just got on with it and there wasn’t ‘Ministry Review’ etc. Happy Days.
The bishops of Lincoln were not required to travel over ranges of mountains, nor find their way to multitudes of far-flung islands.
But the Bishops of Carlisle were.
Carlisle Diocese is a tad smaller than Scotland.
And the diocese in Europe is a tad larger than Scotland. It also has mountain ranges.
How much time does the bishop spend travelling, and how often do confirmations and installations occur?
I’ve no idea how much time he spends travelling, but serving 253 congregations as compared to SEC’s 301 congregations, I guess that he does quite a lot of confirmations and installations. Given that expat Anglicans tend to be rather keener than domestic Anglicans, my guess would be that there are more Anglican confirmations in Europe than in Scotland.
Think I’d settle for what they had rather than slogging up and down the A15 all the time. Or the A17, or the A46. No Little Chefs then either.
No Little Chefs now!
Frank Weston, Bishop of Zanzibar, used to carry a gun around his diocese in case he encountered lions. His nephew, also called Frank Weston, was Bishop of Knaresborough and probably saw no need to take such precautions in the Yorkshire Dales.
In slightly more recent times Edward King used to travel round his large diocese by train and would pray for the people sharing his carriage. So ’tis said’.
Huge meaning what? Scotland is the size of South Carolina. I know these areas well, having lived in Scotland for a decade. I’m not sure of your point, however. 4 Dioceses with less than 800 in attedance on Sunday morning, with 4 paid Bishops. Brechin is postage stamp size. Wisconsin just merged three dioceses and it is far larger than Scotland.
41st-Annual-Report.pdf (anglican.org) I can see the membership of the diocese was ~2400 with attendance of ~792 in 2023. I assume the difference is like “electoral roll” and “usual Sunday” numbers in England. The equivalent CofE numbers are here: statisticsformission2022_tables.xlsx (live.com) The average diocese in England has a typical Sunday attendance eclipsing the whole of Scotland.. Numbers aren’t everything – but it does seem like they need to rationalise to a just maybe 2 (maybe 3 at a push?) not 7 Bishops and then use the saved money for more front-line clergy. Exactly how you would do that is another matter;… Read more »
I think you underestimate how “hands-on” a SEC bishop is. While they don’t have a congregation they do spend a lot of time supporting their clergy and congregations. People seem to be imagining an English bishopric with drivers, chaplains and a full diocesan staff which is simply not the case. It already takes days to traverse Argyll & the Isles.
If anything England ought to look at Scotland’s flatter structure with a higher ratio of bishops rather than this pyramid of area deans and archdeacons and suffragans and all the attendant chaplains and advisors that they have.
I am aware of the responsibilities and landmass in Scotland. While some Bishops regularly take eucharist services in vacant charges, there is undoubtedly an argument for a reduction in the number of dioceses. The late +Keith of Argyll and the Isles managed his travelling well as no doubt +David will do.
Numbers (attending) are significant but certainly not everything. Most of those designating themselves C.of.E. (most – as I do) or Anglican in Australia never attend church even at Christmas and a good number now are not baptised – certainly the majority of perhaps 20,000 hospital patients I (now almost 89) have encountered in the more than 25 years since retirement I have been a weekly hospital chaplain (with others) in a medium c.450 bed public hospital in Sydney Diocese – while certainly making many mistakes in those encounters. Did Jesus want to gather everyone into active involvement in his mission… Read more »
Maybe the decline in the SEC has something to do with small numbers of folk in the pews having to fork out to pay for a disproportionate number of (feuding) bishops? Just asking.
My point was simply that if the whole of Scotland were one diocese, the bishop/s would spend all their time travelling, and any given priest or congregation would see very little of them. Which might be an alluring prospect, but it could be a long wait for e.g. a confirmation or an induction service.
I suppose the difficulty of travel in some Scottish regions might be alleviated by means of an episcopal helicopter – giving a new meaning to ‘flying bishop’.
Who said anything about the whole of Scotland? I didn’t. I think you know that. The Edinburgh-Glasgow belt is its own world. I said that four dioceses that have each under 800 per Sunday do not merit 4 Bishops. Brechin, A&I, A&O, Moray. But the larger point is fairly obvious and is being made ably above. Do I think things will change? No I don’t. I suppose it would be hard for the SEC to accept that two/three bishops are suitable. These are historic sees, of course. So it is necessary but sad, one supposes. It is also bracing to… Read more »
What is not clear is why the case was thought not to be in the public interest, despite there being sufficient evidence against the bishop for it to proceed. Anne has not been exonerated, the complainants’ case hasn’t been heard, and SEC is made to look both inept and unjust. That isn’t a good result for anyone.
Dyer’s faux outrage about having been contacted on holiday is ridiculous. She literally wrote to her disabled victim to make her post redundant on a public holiday. So much for loving your neighbour…
Thank goodness the College of Bishops have, seemingly, finally decided to do the right thing. Dyer is an abuser – the Church’s own Procurator has said there is enough evidence to convict her of that. Get her out.
If she doesn’t have the support of the Primus how can Bishop Dyer really function in the SEC?
In a reference to Titanic analogies on previous posts. The SEC is a sinking ship – and one of their leaders thinks she could keep the ship afloat, but she has disenfranchised her local team and then hacked off her senior leadership. Would she help the bailing ? I think not! She would blame the bailing team for lack of competence and collegiality. Bishop Anne – you have a life-jacket… take it if you want or pass it to someone more self-aware to keep the ship afloat.
Someone needs to offer her a position elsewhere so that no more damage is done to that diocese and they can have a bishop of their own choosing.
Perhaps she could be ‘Bishop for Environmental Justice’ or ‘Bishop Assistant to the College of Bishops’ for the few years until her retirement.
A Settlement Agreement might be out of the reach of the SEC, and might not be something acceptable to those who would offer it, or the one who could accept it, but it would offer something which could be preferable to the status quo. I expect that with two years of episcopal ministery left, those who prefer not to engage could choose not to, claiming busyness, illness, prior commitments, last minute pastoral emergencies, doing funerals, work-related stress, PTSD, that it is their day-off, that they are on holiday, sabbatical, at a family funeral. Can other suggest better excuses? Would an… Read more »
I doubt if excuses would be accepted from parish clergy attempting to absent themselves from a confirmation in their own parishes.
The ConEvos had it off to a fine art in St Albans. They arrived in time to collect their badges from the welcome desk and then departed for home at the first coffee break. They didn’t agree with confirmation anyway.
I’ve never attended a confirmation service which had welcome badges and coffee breaks!
A former colleague of mine had terrible problems with migraines.
I realise this is far from an amusing matter for those involved, but your very sensible suggestion, coupled with the farce this situation has been allowed to descend into makes me think of the end of the wonderful Peter Sellers film ‘Heavens Above’. In that film, the new post dreamed up by the powers that be for a troublesome parish priest was Bishop of Outer Space, based in a remote research base in Antarctica! I’ll watch the clerical appointments announcements in the Church Times with interest….
Don’t forget alternative episcopal oversight for Outer Space!
I read somewhere that Alpha were considering courses for Outer Space, given that they provide courses for just about everywhere. So a Bishop for Outer Space might be able to link in with those.
Is there a vacancy in the Falkland Islands?
Interesting suggestion….though the Falkland Islands are a lovely place (yes, I have been there, and more than once!!) and they’ve been through quite enough turmoil within living memory to last anyone a lifetime. I’d vote to spare them!
The Bishop of the Falkland Islands is Justin Welby as Archbishop of Canterbury, and for some reason I don’t think appointing Anne to his position would solve any of the feuds in the Anglican family.
I feel this is probably one of the best comments I’ve read 🙂
Does the RAF fly the Archbishop out there once in a while?
No. The Bishop FOR the Falkland Islands, who is also Bishop to the Forces, takes this responsibility.
If Bishop Anne Dyer will not resign and gracefully retire, after the Primus and the 3 other Bishops have had a meeting with her, the College of Bishops are faced with either the expensive route of involving the Civil Courts to force her to retire and that could be unedifying given St Paul’s Words about going to the Courts of the Pagans and not settling things in House in the Body of Christ, or seeking help outside Scotland by referring the matter to the Archbishop of Canterbury as Spiritual Leader of the Anglican Communion and the Anglican Consultative Council as… Read more »
“Only someone quite Mad would go on ignoring that reality and fight to stay in Office.”
Or someone who feels that they are in service to God and should fight to continue that service. We don’t know, but I don’t see how name-calling is helpful.
Or indeed someone who has very sadly backed themselves into a corner and desperately does not want to lose face.
indeed — especially given her response is along the lines of “I love this job” not “I feel God has called me to this job”…. .
There has been a steady note in various posts over the past year or two about the parlous state of the SEC and its decline, not all as blunt as Homeless Anglican’s term’s ‘sinking ship’, often offered by people from outside Scotland and who know little of the history of the SEC or by people who haven’t lived in Scotland for very many years. Like all churches, the SEC is diminishing but this doesn’t mean it is about to sink below the waves. It is kind of them to offer their condolences but I think they are premature. I can… Read more »
Am I to understand that the other bishops trying to force Bishop Anne out are all male? Because that is NOT a good look…
I began to comment here a few minutes ago but the text vapourised. I have to hope it wasn’t as a result of the intervention of my guardian angel. I shall try again. There is a shortage of ‘good’ looks in this story. There are also many versions of what ‘really’ happened. One is that it was time to have a woman bishop in Scotland and Aberdeen, having failed to appoint, was ‘gifted’ +Anne. It’s not just England that fails to appoint sometimes. Some observers thought there might be tears before bed time. Indeed. The SEC is certainly small, but… Read more »
I am not sure there is anything gleeful at all about noting four dioceses with four bishops and such a limited Sunday attendance. It is in fact tragic.
But don’t forget it was those same bishops who appointed her. They clearly had confidence in her at some point.
Fr Dexter. It is easy to make that assertion. However there are only two of the current College who were bishops at the time of her appointment, Moray and Edinburgh. Argyll, Brechin and St Andrews have since been elected.
But it was an all-male bench of bishops who apppointed her, a fact that renders J C Fisher’s concern about how this looks through the lens of gender politics redundant.
The male female issue was covered in Professor Torrance’s report of August 2021. The issue here concerns what has been described as bullying and safeguarding.
Canon 4 appointments of diocesan bishops in the SEC can inevitably be controversial, but when the College of Bishops seemingly fails to obtain and then read the correct references the outcome is inevitably precarious.
As an ordinary member of the SEC clergy with a faithful and hardworking congregation I’m finding the tone of some of the comments here rather troubling. We’re not perfect. We try earnestly to welcome and love everyone – including our bishops. Sometimes we could do better. We are making wonderful progress in Kingdom building with the help of God. We are small in number yet mighty in Spirit. Come see for yourselves… It’s devastating for everyone in the SEC that this saga has to be played out in public. Please don’t add to that pain by judging what you have… Read more »
Amanda This sad scenario would not have been dragged out in public for so long if the Bishops had accepted Professor Torrance’s report received in August 2021. I have re read comments and I can’t find any which are critical of hard working and focused priests across Scotland . Some rightly question the over population of bishops. Likewise in England! In your Diocese you suffered much pain with the untimely death of +Keith (whom I knew) while I hope the gifts +David brings will be a blessing to you all. Shalom!
Worth noting that a letter in today’s Church Times (25 October) signed by 24 members of the Diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney gives a very very different picture of the story to the one propagated by Torrance and now being pushed by the Primus
It doesn’t really. The letter talks of a campaign against +Anne which is certainly true, but the signatories are not, from what I can see, in a position to know that the substantive allegations were untrue.
Marian I have not read that letter but may I kindly suggest you choose your words carefully. It is not a case of Torrance propagating a “story”! The Very Rev Professor Torrance was commissioned by the Bishops to investigate the situation in the Diocese. He did so, inviting anyone interested to submit their views through a dedicated email address. His methodology is contained in his report published September 2021. His research was wide and detailed allowing for the time scale. His recommendations were clear.
The Church Times letter does not give a different picture, it gives no picture at all, complaints or issues are not recognised, it is simply a partisan statement in favour of the bishop, and one which (it seems to me) is not likely to bring healing or help. You refer to ‘Torrance’ in a slightly derogatory way; is there no truth in that report, do you dismiss it entirely?