IT WAS another heatwave and a distinctly heady start to this year’s General Synod in York (11 to 15 July). Members gathered for a weekend of detailed decision-making on spending, budgets, pensions, and governance.
On Saturday, amid warnings that the Church of England faced an “existential” crisis on several levels — falling clergy numbers, a slump in vocations, and low morale in parishes — the Synod voted against redistributing one per cent of the Church Commissioners’ funds in perpetuity.
Instead, after a debate in which members spoke of the “exhausting” demands made by the grant system, the Synod eventually voted overwhelmingly for an amendment from the Bishop of Sheffield, Dr Pete Wilcox, which called for a “greater level of stakeholder engagement” in national spending plans.
Similar concerns of power and trust, at both the national and local levels, were raised during two further debates on Saturday.
In the first, members gave final approval to the National Church Governance Measure — under which the Archbishops’ Council will be replaced by Church of England National Services (CENS). An amendment to ensure that the Synod had the power to approve the CENS budget fell, despite a warning that the Synod be turned into nothing more than a ‘‘talking shop”.
In the second, on a motion to welcome the spending plans of the Church Commissioners’ funds for 2026 to 2028, an amendment to allocate funds directly to diocesan stipend funds fell, amid warnings that it was too late to start “unravelling” the plans.
A presentation on Sunday set a more optimistic tone for the remaining sessions, as lay and ordained members told stories of growth in parishes across the country, and of signs of a spiritual revival among young people.
This continued on Sunday evening in a celebratory presentation on the global ecumenical prayer movement Thy Kingdom Come (TKC). Testimonies to the power of prayer were given. School pupils from the north-east were among those who spoke, one saying: “Empowering prayer amongst young people is not only important but necessary. It helps break strongholds like anxiety, fear, and self-doubt by allowing us to give our worries to God.”
Also on Sunday, two additions to the Church’s calendar were welcomed at their first consideration: an ecumenical festival honouring God as Creator, and a commemoration of the Twenty-One Martyrs of Libya.
Further endorsements came on Saturday, when the Synod welcomed the announcement in May that the clergy pension was to be restored to two-thirds of pensionable stipend: the reversal of changes made in 2011 (News, 23 May).
Sam Atkins/Church TimesThe General Synod met at the University of York from 11 to 15 July
Final approval — almost unanimous (just one vote against) — was given to the long-awaited redress scheme for victims and survivors of abuse in a church context, with a pledge to deliver what had been promised several years ago. The most recent delay had been to ensure that victims and survivors of John Smyth were eligible under the scheme, in the wake of the Makin report. This was welcomed by both bishops and survivors.
Although the Business Committee did not schedule time for a Carlisle diocesan-synod motion on Palestine, the shadow of war hung over the sessions.
The Archbishop in Jerusalem, Dr Hosam Naoum, received a standing ovation for his address. “Every part of our lives and our ministries is covered with the shroud of death,” he said of his diocese, and compared the killing of hundreds of Palestinians waiting to receive aid in Gaza to the Hunger Games in which, in a series of dystopian novels and a film, children fight to the death to avoid starvation.
In both his address and at a Synod fringe event, he talked about the ways in which Palestinian Christians were working out what it meant to be a Church in a time of war.
How to be the Church of England in a time of war was also on the minds of Synod members, who, across four days, completed the full legislative process for a Measure and Amending Canon to simplify the licensing of military chaplains. This meant, the Synod was told, that military chaplains would no longer need to apply for permission to officiate (PTO) in every diocese in which they ministered. “Unnecessary bureaucracy” would be stripped out, and flexible ministry would be enabled in times of crisis.
Absent from the agenda was any debate or presentation on Living in Love and Faith (LLF), the Church’s work on sexuality. The work has slowed since the Bishop of Leicester, the Rt Revd Martyn Snow, handed back his portfolio as LLF lead bishop last month.
The Archbishop of York, in his presidential address at the opening of the sessions, admitted that “we seem no nearer a settlement which will hold us together” on provisions for same-sex couples — but he was also hopeful.
“We do not let go of each other,” he said. “How many other organisations would go this far with such disagreement?”
Recent debates on LLF have been polarised and emotional, and Synod members have been warned about language and tone. But, shortly before prorogation on Tuesday, the Synod agreed almost unanimously on an LLF-related topic: a private member’s motion which called for the “outdated” teaching document Issues in Human Sexuality to be pulled from the pre-ordination discernment process.
The document, approved in 1991, became recommended reading for people exploring a vocation to the priesthood. It refers throughout to “homophiles”, speaks of “the bisexual”, and suggests that bisexual people, who, it says, are “invariably” unfaithful, should seek counselling “to discover the truth of their personality” — a line that some read as an endorsement of conversion therapy.
Several Synod members spoke about the harm that Issues, they said, had inflicted during the discernment process, particularly on LGBTQ+ people. Paul Waddell, who had moved the motion, remarked on the collaborative atmosphere of the debate, which, he hoped, would “set a new tone” for future sessions.
Another topic that brought almost unanimous agreement towards the end of the meeting, on Tuesday, was a motion to condemn the Leadbeater Bill to legalise assisted dying, which Parliament is currently considering. A late addition to the agenda, introduced by the Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Sarah Mullally, the motion called on the Government to boost funding for palliative care instead of enacting the Bill. The motion was carried by 238-7, with seven recorded abstentions
