In the village of Taynuilt, there was a warm welcome for the recent news of the Church of England's appointment of a new Bishop of Gloucester.

The Venerable Rachel Treweek, the 52-year-old Archdeacon of Hackney in London, will become the first female diocesan bishop in Gloucester, and therefore the most senior in the history of the church.

Her parents moved to Argyll from Norfolk and are elders in the local Church of Scotland which, of course, has long had women ministers.

So it is perhaps difficult to remember that, only 22 years ago, the Scottish Episcopal Bishop of Moray, Ross, and Caithness, a diocese that covers half of the Highlands, had very publicly taken early retirement on a point of principle. It was his opposition to the ordination of women priests within his church, part of the Anglican Communion, which has obviously moved some way since on gender equality.

But it appears the Scottish Episcopal Church has also begun to throw off some other baggage, its popular image in Scotland for perhaps a century as one of being "the English church".

Although it was as often a reference to the building as the denomination, it was historically inaccurate. The Episcopal Church sprang from the very heart of the Scottish Reformation,

Its roots can be traced back through Highland Jacobite blood for at least 300 years. The MacDonalds massacred in Glencoe Massacre in 1692 were almost certainly Episcopalian, despite the Master of Stair, the man responsible, referring to them as a ''Popish'' clan.

The church's claim of descent from Columba's Iona is equal to any other. Even today, travelling north from Oban by way of Appin, Duror, Kentallen, Ballachulish, Glencoe and Onich in the Diocese of Argyll and the Isles, you can see how integral it is to these communities.

However it was long popularly associated with the English establishment and affluent Scots.

But there is a growing feeling that this is changing, despite the church's numbers in the Highlands having been significantly sustained by Anglicans amongst the in-migration from England of around 71,000 people.

It is also perhaps ironic that, if anything, the years of heated debate on the independence referendum have served it well on this front.

The Rt Rev Mark Strange, Bishop of Moray, Ross and Caithness certainly has something of a correction on identity.

He said his diocese had "continued to develop its ministry and mission in a way that encompasses the Episcopalian heartlands of the Black Isle, Strathnairn and the communities in historic Banffshire and Moray, whilst also engaging with the western and northern Highlands. The use of Gaelic in worship and a re-awakening of the cultural place of our church in many of our communities has seen a diminishing of the non-Scottish references to this denomination, and we have welcomed many new members from Scotland, England and many other parts of the world."

Now it appearsmore likely that any reference will be to the "Piscie church"; progress indeed.