Tuesday, February 04, 2025

Rev Trevor Gribben nominated as Presbyterian Moderator

Reverend Trevor Gribben has been nominated as the next Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI).

The church's 19 regional presbyteries met independently, in various locations across Ireland, to conduct the church’s annual election for its senior officer bearer and principal public representative.

Rev Gribben received the most votes this evening to take up the role as Moderator in June when he is formally elected and installed by the General Assembly in Belfast.

The Tandragee-born 63-year-old who has held the office of Clerk of the General Assembly for a number of years, described his nomination as "a great honour, and a very humbling experience".

"Although it’s been my day-job over the years as Clerk to ring colleagues to inform them of their nomination as Moderator-Designate, it was a very different experience tonight to get that phone call myself from the Deputy Clerk," he said.

The election for Moderator takes place on the first Tuesday of every February.

Minister of Templepatrick Presbyterian Church Rev Richard Kerr who was the second nominee received three votes.

Moderator-Designate Rev Trevor Gribben received 16 votes.

Rev Gribben who worked for a short while as a systems analyst and programmer for Mayfair Manufacturing in Portadown, was ordained as assistant minister of Duncairn and St Enoch’s Presbyterian Church in inner-city North Belfast in 1988.

In 1990, he was called to Leckpatrick Presbyterian Church in Co Tyrone as their minister and served there until 1996.

He was then called to Whiteabbey Presbyterian Church in Co Antrim, where he remained for a further 12 years, before being appointed PCI’s Deputy Clerk in 2008.

The Presbyterian Church in Ireland has gone through a turbulent time in recent years.

In 2023, women members expressed "hurt and dismay" over remarks by the then Moderator-Designate Reverend Sam Mawhinney, who said he was not in favour of the ordination of women - which is a policy of the denomination.

However, the PCI said it permitted those who "genuinely and sincerely" differed from that position to hold a different view.

More recently, a minister who was summoned before the PCI's Judicial Commission for taking part in events with the LGBTQ+ community resigned.

In December, Reverend Dr Katherine Meyer described the decision as one of the most painful of her life.

However, she said it had become impossible for her to cooperate any further with the PCI's enquiry and disciplinary processes which she described as "flawed and destructive".

Dr Meyers was called before the Judicial Commission of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland twice last year.

In May, she had to answer for her attendance at a service of worship organised by Amach le Dia (a group comprising LGBTQ+ Christian members) televised by RTÉ.

On the second occasion, she was summoned because she walked in the Dublin Pride Parade during the summer, with a group of church members under a banner, 'Presbyterians for equality and inclusion'.

Complaints were lodged against her by other members of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland and decided that the only path forward for her was to resign from ordained ministry.

Rev Gribben has acknowledged that these are "challenging days" for the church, "as we seek to live out our calling in an increasingly pluralist and sometimes even hostile world".

However, he said they were also "great days of opportunity".

"The world might be changing, but the world still needs the Lord and the message of the Gospel hasn’t changed.

"The Good News of salvation and new life that is freely available by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone, is needed today as much as in days gone by," he said.

Rev Gribben will continue as Clerk of the General Assembly and PCI’s General Secretary until he is officially nominated to this year’s General Assembly, when it gathers this summer.

He succeeds the current Moderator, Rt Rev Dr Richard Murray, who will continue in office until then.