Our Who’s Who directory provides contact details for Diocesan Officers.  Please see our church directory for further clergy details. Please contact the Diocesan Office for general enquiries about the Diocese.

In common with all Christian churches our belief is rooted in a God who created the world, restored a broken humanity, and who offers new life in Christ.

Our beliefs, in more, poetic and sophisticated forms can be found in the ancient Apostles and Nicene creeds, and these, and occasional new versions, are available for download from the Liturgy section of the Scottish Episcopal Church website.

A brief history of the Diocese by Dr David Bertie:

The Diocese of Brechin extends from the Carse of Gowrie in eastern Perthshire northeastwards to the outskirts of Aberdeen. Included within the diocese are Scotland’s fourth city, Dundee, the coastal burghs of Angus plus Brechin, and almost all of Kincardineshire.

Early Christian foundations within the present diocesan boundary have been found at Monifieth and Ecclesgreig (St. Cyrus), while St. Vigeans appears to have been a centre of importance, given the number of carved Pictish stones from that site. Brechin itself is first mentioned during the reign of Kenneth II (971-975). The celebrated round tower which today adjoins Brechin Cathedral dates from the eleventh century. A Community of Céli Dé is recorded from the second half of the twelfth century, which had been transformed by 1249/50 into a chapter of secular canons of Brechin Cathedral.

The Diocese of Brechin was founded about 1150 with the first mention of Bishop Samson. The oldest surviving remains of the Cathedral probably date from the time of Bishop Radulf in the early thirteenth century. The diocese’s present geographical unity, however, is a relatively late development, dating only from the second half of the seventeenth century. The mediaeval Diocese of Brechin existed as a series of some 23 individual parishes scattered about the Angus and Mearns parts of the huge Diocese of St. Andrews (which stretched from the Tweed in the south to the Dee in the North). Dundee, Brechin and Montrose were the only burghs within the mediaeval Diocese of Brechin, the remainder being rural parishes.

The early Bishops
Most of the earlier bishops of Brechin made little impact on history. John de Kininmund (1298 – 1323 x 1327) was elected bishop while William Wallace was Guardian of Scotland and he continued a supporter of Robert the Bruce. John de Crannach (1426-1453) founded the sang schuil at Brechin in 1429. Patrick Graham (1463-1465) was translated to the Diocese of St. Andrews in 1465 and saw that diocese elevated to an archbishopric in 1472.

The small and scattered size of the mediaeval Diocese of Brechin meant that it was never particularly wealthy. The only religious houses within its bounds were houses of Dominican friars, Franciscan friars and Franciscan nuns in Dundee, and a house of Dominican friars in Montrose. (The great Tironensian abbey of Arbroath and the Carmelite friary at Inverbervie were in St. Andrews diocese.) The majority of the parishes were appropriated, their teinds going to support monastic foundations such as Arbroath Abbey, Coupar Abbey or Lindores Abbey, none of which were in the diocese. The appropriations resulted in a neglected and under-financed parish ministry; as a consequence by the fifteenth century many lairds had their own chaplains or patronised local friaries.

Reformation
Lutheran ideas from Germany and the Low Countries began to infiltrate the Angus and Mearns area during the 1530s through North Sea trading links. Efforts to reform the old Roman Catholic Church led to a politico-religious clash between the church authorities and the lairds of Angus and the Mearns during the 1540s and 1550s. Bishop John Hepburn (1516-1557), however, was a supporter of Cardinal Beaton’s sustained attack on the spread of protestantism. The Protestant lords led a revolt against French and papal domination during 1559-1560. The mass and the authority of the Pope in Scotland were abolished by the Reformation Parliament in 1560.

The office of bishop was not abolished by the Reformation Parliament and was briefly revived in titular form in the Church of Scotland in 1572. Further disputes after 1575 led to the establishment of an explicitly Presbyterian form of church government in 1592, but Episcopacy was restored in 1610. The civil unrest following the introduction of a new Scottish Prayer Book in 1637 led to the abolition of Episcopacy in 1638. The religious wars that followed ended with the Cromwellian occupation of Scotland from 1651 to 1660. The Restoration of Charles II saw the re-establishment of Episcopacy in the Church of Scotland in 1661.

During each of the Episcopal periods up to 1638 the boundaries of the various dioceses in Scotland were those of the mediaeval period. The reformers rejected these often erratic boundaries as a hindrance to effective supervision and various alternative models were proposed between 1560 and 1592. After 1592 a system of kirk sessions, presbyteries and synods was settled by the Presbyterian establishment which formed the basis for administration of the Church of Scotland during the Presbyterian periods. The restored Episcopacy of 1661, however, saw bishops co-existing with kirk sessions, presbyteries and synods. This meant that the Diocese of Brechin henceforth corresponded broadly to the Presbyteries of Brechin, Dundee and Fordoun in the Synod of Angus & Mearns, with a few parishes from the neighbouring Presbyteries of Perth, Aberdeen and Kincardine O’Neil.

Faced with growing discontent with his Roman Catholic policies, James VII fled to France in 1688 during the “Glorious Revolution” and William of Orange was proclaimed King of Scots in April 1689. The Scottish bishops felt they could not renounce their loyalty to the exiled James VII and lost their opportunity for support from the new monarch. Episcopacy was disestablished in July 1689 as the form of church government of the Church of Scotland. Many Episcopal priests north of the Tay, however, continued to hold onto the parish churches, often until their deaths. At that point most Episcopalian congregations had to find alternative places of worship.

From 1678 the Diocese of Brechin had effectively become a starting point for episcopal careers. George Haliburton (1678-1682) was translated to Aberdeen in 1682 and was bishop there at the Revolution. He subsequently resided at his family home at Newtyle, near Dundee. Robert Douglas (1682-1684) was translated to Dunblane in 1684. He retired to Dundee at the Revolution, living at Dudhope Castle and providing assistance to the Episcopal clergy in the town. Alexander Cairncross (1684) was translated to the Archbishopric of Glasgow almost immediately after becoming Bishop of Brechin. He was translated to Raphoe in Ireland in 1687, thereby escaping the rigours of the Revolution. James Drummond (1684-1695) was bishop at the time of the Revolution. He took up residence at Slains Castle, near Peterhead, providing support to the Episcopal incumbent of Cruden.

The 1715 Rising
Until 1712 the Presbyterian establishment used every means it could to urge the civil authorities to oust and bar Episcopal ministry. The Toleration Act of 1712 gave respite to Episcopalians, making Episcopal ministry legal provided they prayed for Queen Anne. The Qualified congregation at Montrose was established in 1712 under this law. The disaster of the 1715 Rising led to the first of a succession of repressive Penal Laws against Episcopacy. A number of congregations ceased to exist about this time, owing to the church’s inability to replace clergy after the death of sitting Episcopal incumbents.

The period 1720 to 1745 was one of relative stability for the Scottish Episcopal Church. There was a certain amount of resurgence during the 1730s as the civil authorities became more tolerant of the existence of Episcopacy. Bishop Thomas Rattray (1727-1731) was a great liturgist, his work on the eastern liturgies strongly influencing the development of the Scottish Liturgy, and was also a great supporter of the Usages. The congregation at Dundee, however, split in 1727 as result of disputes over the Usages. The disaster of the 1745 Rising saw a fresh set of penal legislation enacted against Episcopacy in Scotland. In the winter of 1748-49 the priests from Muchalls, Stonehaven and Drumlithie were imprisoned in Stonehaven Tolbooth for ministering to congregations other than their own families. Some Episcopal congregation members from the landed and merchant classes decided they could no longer continue to be regarded as nonjurors and Qualified chapels, with English or Irish clergymen, were established in Dundee (1749), Brechin (1749), Stonehaven (1751) and Arbroath (1760) (in addition to that founded at Montrose in 1712). Although outright attacks on Episcopalians largely ceased after 1760, the strong downward social pressures led to a steady decline in the Church over most of the country.

The 19th century
The death of Prince Charles in 1788 paved the way for the Scottish Episcopal Church to abandon finally its support for the exiled Stuarts and begin to pray for the Hanoverian monarchy. When the Penal Laws were repealed in 1792 there were still nine Episcopal congregations in the Diocese of Brechin. Most of the Qualified congregations re-united with the Scottish Episcopal Church; Stonehaven in 1803, Arbroath in 1806, Brechin in 1826, and Dundee in 1829. Bishop George Gleig (1810-1840) was the first bishop of Brechin to be Primus (1816-1837). He had been editor of the third edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica in 1797.

The first signs of growth came with the establishment of new congregations at Catterline (1840) and Fasque (1846). The episcopate of Bishop Forbes was a major period of growth for the diocese with three new congregations in Dundee (St. Mary Magdalene’s 1851, St. Salvador’s 1856, and St. Margaret’s 1861, as well as Holy Trinity (a mission of St. Mary Magdalene’s) in 1873), plus Broughty Ferry (1848), Carnoustie (1864), Cove Bay (1864) and Glencarse (1875).

Alexander Penrose Forbes (1847-1875) is the great central figure in the more modern history of the Diocese of Brechin. He carried out a ministry in the Dundee slums, establishing new churches, and was a tireless social reformer. He was the first Tractarian bishop in the United Kingdom and a leading figure of the Oxford Movement, his views, however, leading to an ecclesiastical trial by his fellow bishops in 1860. Bishop Forbes was a stalwart supporter of the Scottish Liturgy, his efforts ensuring that it was only downgraded to a secondary position in the Scottish Episcopal Church in 1863, rather than abolished and replaced by the English Book of Common Prayer. From travels abroad, Forbes acquired a deep understanding of the Roman Catholic Church; his dreams of unity were dashed, however, by the outcome of the First Vatican Council in 1870. In 1870-71 Forbes founded in Dundee the Sisterhood of St. Mary & St. Modwenna, becoming the first Anglican bishop to be the founder of a religious community. Bishop Forbes’s most visible memorial is St. Paul’s in Dundee, which he built in 1855 and which became the diocese’s cathedral in 1905.

Bishop Forbes’s legacy of mission work in Dundee continued with the foundation of St. John’s (1876), St. Martin’s (1876), All Saints (another mission of St. Mary Magdalene’s) (1896), St. Luke’s (1896), St. Roque’s (1896) and St. Columba’s (1897). Rural congregations were founded at Drumtochty (1882) and Invergowrie (1883) (the latter a development from earlier missions at Inchture and Knapp). The congregation founded at Torry (1882) was the northernmost in the diocese. Following the establishment of congregations at Inverbervie (1898) and Monifieth (1903), there was an Episcopal congregation in every burgh in the diocese, in addition to the eleven congregations in Dundee.

The 20th century
In common with most denominations, the Scottish Episcopal Church reached its maximum size in the early part of the twentieth century. St. Mary Magdalene’s in Dundee (with its missions of Holy Trinity and All Saints) was the largest congregation in Scotland. The Second World War proved to be a watershed period. In Dundee, St. Columba’s was closed in 1939 and St. Mary Magdalene’s two missions in 1944. Further inner-city slum clearance led to the closure of St. Roque’s in 1956. A short-lived hope for a reversal of closures was the establishment in 1956 of Holy Cross in Dundee’s largest housing scheme, Fintry, but this was closed in 1966.

The scattered pattern of the other congregations in the city has meant that Dundee has suffered considerably less than Glasgow or Edinburgh from post-Second World War church closures. Despite rural depopulation, none of the rural churches has been closed, although many are now part of linked charges. The growth of suburban Aberdeen saw the churches at Cove Bay and Torry transferred to the Diocese of Aberdeen & Orkney in 1976, leaving Muchalls as the diocese’s northernmost congregation.

A list of the Bishops of Brechin:

The Diocese has long established links with the Episcopal Diocese of Iowa in USA and the Anglican Diocese of Eswatini in Southern Africa.

These have offered opportunities for sharing ideas and support and for collaborative projects. Exchange visits happen fairly regularly and  friendship and support links are established in several congregations.

For further information on Swaziland please contact Rev Canon Jim Benton-Evans, Companion Dioceses Links Officer on 07702 842727 or email jimbentonevans@gmail.com.

Diocesan Synod
The Synod is the ruling body of the Diocese, chaired by the Bishop and made up of all clergy in the Diocese, Diocesan officials and lay members. The Synod normally meets on a Saturday in March in Dundee. Should there be extraordinary business to be addressed, such as matters from General Synod, then a Special Synod is held in the autumn. This is usually a short evening meeting and rotates around the congregations. During the year its business is carried out by the Diocesan Council.

Diocesan Council
Diocesan Council was newly formed in March 2015. It conducts the business of the diocese between Diocesan Synod meetings and is responsible for the strategic direction and administrative effectiveness of diocesan mission and ministry, financial and property resources. It has eleven members appointed by Synod: The Bishop chairing, the Dean of the Diocese, the Mission Officer and the Ministry Officer, the Diocesan Treasurer and the Convenor of the Diocesan Buildings Committee, two clergy members, two lay members and the Diocesan Secretary who is the executive officer for the Council. The Diocesan Council meets six times during the year.

Diocesan Buildings Committee
This is set up in accordance with Canon 35 (Of the Structure, Furniture and Monuments of Churches, and the Due Care Thereof) and Canon 50.9 (to consider and determine proposals relating to all changes to the fabric of Church Buildings). It also has a remit concerning property inspections.

Its membership consists of Convener, Dean, Diocesan Secretary and ten other persons with expert knowledge of architecture, ecclesiastical artefacts and liturgy.

The Committee has two main, and clearly defined, areas of responsibility. The transaction and conduct of business for each area of responsibility is kept and managed quite separately.

Under Canon 35 its responsibility is to:

The committee normally conducts its Canon 35 business through formal meetings and reports to Diocesan Council and to Diocesan Synod.

Each charge has the responsibility to ensure that properties under its remit are inspected by a qualified architect every 5 years by way of a Quinquennial Architect’s inspection.

Concerning property inspections it is the responsibility of each charge to ensure that properties under its remit are inspected by a qualified architect every 5 years, the Quinquennial architect’s inspection. No separate inspections will be carried out by the Diocesan Buildings Committee unless they are requested to do so by the vestry, rector or Bishop.

The DBC does not carry out separate inspections of properties unless requested to do so by the Vestry, the rector or the Bishop.

The charge can contact the Diocesan Buildings Committee to provide advice and guidance on property maintenance. It does not however, replace the need to obtain at their own expense professional advice when judged necessary by the Diocesan Buildings Committee.

Maintenance of diocesan owned buildings is the responsibility of the Diocesan Council.

Useful Links
Buildings Commitee Resources
Guidance on Canon 35 Applications

Cathedral Chapter
The Chapter is recognised as the Council of the Bishop in all matters connected with the exercise of his office in the Diocese. It offers pastoral and policy advice. The Bishop shall summon and hold Meetings of the Chapter at his discretion or on a written request from the Provost or Rector, or from two of the Canons.

The Chapter consists of the Rector of Saint Paul’s and four other Canons who shall be:

In the absence of the Bishop, the Dean of the Diocese shall preside, and failing him, the Provost, or if the Bishop be Provost, the Rector.