The General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church will meet this year at St Paul’s & St George’s Episcopal Church in Edinburgh, from Thursday 13 June to Saturday 15 June 2024.
The agenda and papers have now been sent to members and published here on the Scottish Episcopal Church website, detailing the business scheduled.
Proceedings will begin on the Thursday with the Opening Eucharist at St Paul’s & St George’s. The offering taken as part of the Synod Eucharist will be donated to Friends of the Holy Land and will be taken online here.
The first day’s business sessions of Synod will involve sessions on the Church’s Net Zero strategy and the work of the Provincial Youth Committee, as well as a presentation from the College of Bishops on church membership statistics and an update on the SEC’s pension fund.
On Friday morning, Synod will consider a motion committing the Church to support nuclear weapons disarmament. The motion invites Synod members to agree that “the use of nuclear weapons can never be theologically justified, and the church commits to a policy of advocating for arms control, disarmament and no-proliferation of weapons”.
The morning session will also see Synod discuss changes to Canon 15 and 16, which formalise the Church’s ecumenical relationships and provide a framework for Clergy of other churches to officiate in the Scottish Episcopal Church.
Before lunch, Synod members will have the opportunity to ‘Meet the Board Conveners’, where Conveners will give an update on their Board’s workplan and answer questions. Synod members are free to choose which session they wish to attend.
In the afternoon in light of Net Zero commitments made by the Church there will be discussion on alterations to Canon 35 (where changes to church buildings are proposed). The final sessions of the day will consider new Lent, Holy Week and Easter liturgies and will hear from the Primus on the recent ecumenical pilgrimage to Jamaica which examined the legacies and continuing impact of the slave trade.
The final day’s agenda features safeguarding, budgets, quota and elections, before business is concluded with a closing act of worship.
As usual, the proceedings at Synod will be live-streamed online.
A Freshers’ Meeting for new members will be held in the Upper Hall at Ps & Gs shortly before Synod opens, and in the evening, the Synod Dinner will be held at the Royal Scots Club.
Additionally, the opening day will see the Provincial Global Partnerships Committee invite Synod members to take part in Thursdays in Black, where participants wear black every Thursday as part of the campaign to end violence against women.
