THE Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland has admitted John Knox would not have approved of women holding prominent positions within the Kirk.

The Right Reverend Lorna Hood said she acknowledged the legacy of the man widely thought of as a founding father of the Protestant Reformation in Scotland and of the Church of Scotland.

However, Mrs Hood, only the third woman to become Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in more than 400 years, questioned his views on women.

In 1558 Knox decried what he called a "monstrous regiment" when he published "The first blast of the trumpet against the monstrous regiment of women" in Geneva.

Arguing it was wrong for a woman to rule over a country, his treatise was directed principally against England's Queen Mary, but it did not endear Knox to Mary's sister and successor, Elizabeth I.

When Knox sought to return to Scotland from Switzerland, his journey was delayed as Elizabeth refused him permission to travel through England.

Mrs Hood said of Knox: "I think he was hugely important to the Church of Scotland.

"In fact, there are those who would say he was the founder of the Church of Scotland but not in fact of Presbyterianism, which was developed by Andrew Melville some years after the death of John Knox, with the Second Book of Discipline.

"As we go into the Assembly Hall each year at the General Assembly there's a huge statue of Knox so you can't fail to see him on the way past and realise how important he is within the Church."

His thoughts against women jar with Mrs Hood. When Mrs Hood and her chaplain, the Rev Eleanor MacMahon, walked past Knox's statue on their way into the Assembly Hall for the General Assembly, she joked: "He'll be birling."

Since the days of Knox the Church and society have moved away from his views that a woman leader is subversive and repugnant to nature

The Church of Scotland has had women ordained since the 1960s. The Rev Catherine McConnachie was ordained by the Presbytery of Aberdeen in 1969.

It was the Rev Dr Mary Levison - or Lusk as she was then - who was more than anyone else responsible for persuading the Church of Scotland that women should be ordained to the ministry.

In 1963 she petitioned the General Assembly for ordination but it was not until 1977 that she was ordained as assistant minister at St Andrew's and St George's in Edinburgh.

She subsequently became the first woman to be appointed a Chaplain to the Queen in Scotland and was Moderator of the Presbytery of Edinburgh.

Mrs Hood said: "It's only 50 years since women have been ordained within The Church of Scotland.

"We have moved a long way from Knox's view of seeing women leaders as being repugnant and subversive to having equal opportunities.

"Would Knox approve? Probably not."

The Church of Scotland has had three female Moderators of the General Assembly, also including Dr Alison Elliot, an elder and session clerk at Greyfriars Tollbooth and Highland Kirk in Edinburgh, who was the first non-minister to hold the post since George Buchanan in 1567 and the Very Rev Dr Sheilagh Kesting.