THE names of the seven men commissioned as “leaders” at a service in St Helen’s, Bishopsgate, last week, are not being publicised out of concern about “repercussions”, the Rector of the church, the Revd William Taylor, said on Wednesday.
Mr Taylor told the Church Times that he was concerned that those who had been commissioned might be sanctioned by bishops in their dioceses.
They had not been named outside of the churches and networks in which they would work, and this was to “protect their ministries and that of their incumbents from repercussions”.
“In some of the dioceses where these individuals are serving, there is a well-founded concern that diocesan bishops misuse their power and take punitive action to restrict the ministry of the churches or commissioned leaders themselves,” he said.
A spokesperson for the diocese of London said on Wednesday that the diocese was “conscious of questions raised regarding the recent commissioning services that have taken place at All Souls Langham Place and St Helen’s Bishopsgate.
“Incumbents have been reminded before and following these services of their responsibilities to ensure that the law of the Church of England as expressed in canon and liturgy is observed, and that all safeguarding requirements are fully met.”
Mr Taylor said that the parishes where the newly commissioned individuals “are serving their training posts” complied with C of E’s safeguarding procedures, and that “many” of those parishes were contributing to diocesan safeguarding costs despite withholding parish share.
He also provided more detail about the “informal church family meals” that would take place at St Helen’s, and which the liberal Catholic network Affirming Catholicism had criticised, saying that they seemed to amount to “eucharistic services led by lay people in roles not recognised by the wider Church of England”.
These gatherings would “take place separately from formal Church of England services”, and would be led by the commissioned men only after the completion of the first year of service.
“The churches in which the individuals are serving their training post are conscious that this is not ideal, and that it is an interim measure necessitated by the House of Bishops’ divisive LLF [Living in Love and Faith] proposals,” he said.
Last Friday, Mr Taylor had said in a video on the St Helen’s website that he expected that the men would be ordained “less publicly, in due course, by Anglican bishops not in partnership with the unorthodox bishops of the Church of England”.
Asked on Wednesday whether he expected these ordinations to be recognised within the C of E, he said that he was confident that they would be accepted “by orthodox diocesan bishops”, and that “once a separate province has been established in the Church of England they will be welcomed into that province.”
Mr Taylor had said in his video that the House of Bishops had put the C of E on a “pathway of self-serving and divisive schism”, and had called for structural change to accommodate opponents of the introduction of blessings for same-sex couples.
The chair of Together for the Church of England, Canon Neil Patterson, said on Wednesday: “We are particularly saddened by the heated rhetoric that has become increasingly present in relation to the modest pastoral arrangements provided through the Prayers of Love and Faith, which are a long way short of equal marriage.”
Canon Patterson said that Together, which is a coalition of several groups campaigning for greater LGBTQ+ inclusion, “look forward to continued dialogue with the House of Bishops and good faith partners, as we work together in our shared mission”, and expressed a hope that “those with whom we disagree might recommit themselves to fruitful dialogue and finding a way to be together in the Church of England”.
Speaking to the Church Times, Mr Taylor emphasised that not all of the parishes for which individuals had been commissioned could be described as “wealthy”.
One of them had raised funds from other churches to be able to employ the person who had now been commissioned, he said, and most of the parishes were based in “areas of considerable social and financial need”.
Accounts filed with the Charity Commission show that St Helen’s received £4 million in income in 2022, almost £3.2 million of which came from donations and legacies.
That year, it gave £44,400 to the Diocesan Common Fund, and spent more than £1.7 million on staff salaries, expenses, and pension contributions.
In comparison, St Anne’s, Limehouse, whose assistant minister Mervin Kissoon was among the seven men commissioned last Wednesday, reported a total income of less than £200,000 in 2022.
A public post on the church’s Facebook page congratulating Mr Kissoon was deleted on Wednesday.
Last Wednesday’s service was not, Mr Taylor said on Friday, an official event of the Alliance — a coalition of Evangelical and Catholic opponents to the House of Bishops’ proposed course of action — but highlighted the participation of the leaders of the Church of England Evangelical Council.
The director of the traditionalist Anglo-Catholic organisation Forward in Faith (FiF), Tom Middleton, who has been a regular signatory to Alliance letters, did not attend the service.
A spokesman said on Wednesday that FiF “continues to be a participant member of the Alliance on the basis that it is vitally important for the sacrament of Holy Matrimony to be promoted and preserved in its traditional form”.
As the commissioning service had taken place “outside of the auspices of the Alliance”, however, FiF had no further comment to make.
On Tuesday, a Church House spokesperson said: “The lead bishop for LLF, alongside the LLF staff team, are in conversation with different networks in order to bring further detail to proposals to the House of Bishops in October.
“We are seeking to move forward as one Church. That will require grace, realism and a recognition that, as Christians, we hold a variety of views on these questions, all of which are held with integrity and all of which deserve respect.”