Former moderator Rev Trevor Gribben stood down in November after a review found “serious and significant failings” in central safeguarding functions from 2009 to 2022.
The PSNI and Charity Commission have both launched major investigations.
Up to 900 ministers and elders from all congregations travelled to Belfast in December to vote on the way through the crisis. Some 400 made the journey again today to discuss progress made since then.
Opening the Special Assembly today, the current Moderator, Rev Dr Richard Murray, said that the church was living through ‘an ecclesiastical earthquake’ and encouraged ministers and elders to look to Psalm 46 for inspiration.
Dr Murray said “it was written at a time of huge change in the history of the people of God… [who] had a sense about them of earthquakes happening…”.
Pointing to verse 2, he quoted: “The earth gives way…the mountains moved into the heart of the sea.”
He added: “Clearly the psalmist was living through times of cataclysmic change and it’s good to remind ourselves that such times have always been faced by God’s people, to a greater or lesser extent.
"We in PCI are living through such a time when there’s been an ecclesiastical earthquake and when safeguarding has (quite rightly) been moved centre stage.”
Speaking of the crisis in the church, Dr Murray affirmed those “who have faithfully and dutifully carried out their safeguarding duties, but others have failed us and, in their wake, we are acutely aware of people who have suffered and been left desolate, and then there are forces without and forces within that oppose us and sometimes we wonder what’s coming next?”
He then asked: “What does the future hold for PCI?’ and ‘where is the Lord in the middle of it all?”’
He continued: “We in PCI are in trouble, make no mistake about it, especially, again, and most necessarily we think of those hurt, harmed, traumatised by our failings,”
The two principal pieces of business today will see the assembly consider the ceremonial and reporting aspects of the church’s General Assembly in June and the approve resolutions concerning the appointment process of a new Clerk of the General Assembly’, and a new senior leadership structure for the Church.
The Special General Assembly is open to the public to attend and livestreamed via www.presbyterianireland.org/special/ga26 where the reports and resolutions and be found.