ONE of the largest Church of Scotland congregations has voted in favour of formally breaking away from the Kirk in the wake of the gay clergy row.
Of the 385 members and adherents of the High Church in Stornoway on Lewis who took part in the vote, 313 indicated they wanted to leave the Church of Scotland. The ballot called by their Kirk Session asked 456 people eligible to vote whether they wished to quit the Church of Scotland and join another denomination.
Church treasurer Neil Galbraith said: "It is a very clear position as far as the members are concerned. It is part of a process. The session will carefully consider the results and a congregational meeting will be held in due course."
Those who voted against leaving the Church of Scotland - or who abstained - will now face switching to another church if the High Church does quit the kirk.
"You cannot leave the church as a congregation - you leave as an individual," stressed Mr Galbraith.
The vote is in protest at the decision by the General Assembly to move towards allowing the ordination of openly-gay ministers. The church in Stornoway needs the backing of the Lewis Presbytery before an official approach can be made to the Church of Scotland in Edinburgh. The area presbytery is balloting members.
A Church of Scotland spokesman said: "As Scotland's national church we are committed to maintaining our presence in Stornoway.
"The Presbytery of Lewis is currently conducting its own official consultation with members and adherents who attend Stornoway High Church and the results of this will not be known until the end of next week.
"While respecting the views raised today, we must stress the consultation carried out by the Kirk Session is unofficial and not binding. Until the outcome of the official Presbytery consultation is known we cannot comment further on this matter."
Lewis Presbytery clerk, the Rev Thomas Sinclair, said: "While respecting the right of individuals and congregations to review their relationship with the Church of Scotland, Presbytery feels it would be premature for individuals to leave the Church of Scotland at present when the church has still to establish its position."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article