Historical Perspectives

Two dioceses founded after religious division – Aberdeen in 1682, and Orkney in 1688

Christianity in Western Europe underwent a number of reforms in the sixteenth century, and in Scotland reforms led to divisions, religious and political, between those who wanted to continue following the Pope and those who did not. Some of the latter wanted to retain bishops, and others did not. Those who wanted bishops had royal support, from James VI and Charles I – Charles decided to renew the church and established Edinburgh as the first diocese in 1633. A new Scottish prayer book was authorised in 1637. Other dioceses followed: Aberdeen was founded in 1682, and Orkney in 1688.

Support for bishops stays strong in the North-East and the Highlands even though the state opposes them.

Bishops were rejected again soon after, but restored after the English Civil War in 1660. When William of Orange took power in 1688 the bishops refused to support him, and William instead backed the ‘presbyterian’ model for the Church of Scotland, a church with no bishops. Most of the Scottish clergy as well as a majority of the population in the North East of Scotland remained loyal to the bishops, and it was from congregations in the North East and the Highlands that the denomination now known as the Scottish Episcopal Church came to grow.

Orkney and Shetland hard hit by the Revolution

Orkney’s first bishop, Andrew Bruce, held his see from 1688 to 1699, but after that there was only a sporadic Episcopalian presence in the islands. From this uneasy position the see supplied Orkney’s first Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church when Robert Keith served from 1743 to 1757. Regular services resumed in Lerwick in 1861, and in Kirkwall in 1871. The see was linked with various others from 1699 to 1865, when Thomas Suther became the first Bishop of Aberdeen and Orkney.

The link with the Jacobites almost destroys the church, but it revives from foundations in Aberdeenshire.

With church and state so intertwined, the Episcopal Church found itself linked with the Jacobites, supporting James VII and his son James VIII. When the Jacobites were defeated, the church was almost extinguished, with penal laws made to restrict congregating and worship.

Bishops Robert Kilgour and John Skinner work hard to have the penal laws repealed.

Several bishops worked hard to re-establish concord with the secular authorities, among them Bishop Robert Kilgour of Aberdeen (later the first Aberdeen bishop to be Primus, or principal bishop of the church, 1782 – 1788) and John Skinner, also of Aberdeen and also later Primus (1788 – 1816). John Skinner’s father had been the incumbent of Longside in Aberdeenshire and was imprisoned during Jacobite times. His son William was also later Primus (1841 – 1857).

The Consecration of Samuel Seabury, first bishop for America, took place in Aberdeen in 1784

At Aberdeen in 1784, in a chapel in John Skinner’s house, Samuel Seabury, from Connecticut, was consecrated by Scottish Bishops (Robert Kilgour, John Skinner and others) as the first bishop of Connecticut and the first bishop in the American Episcopal Church. This is sometimes seen as the foundation of the worldwide Anglican Communion of which the Scottish Episcopal Church is a member. That chapel was replaced in 1816 by St. Andrew’s Chapel, King Street, from 1914 the diocesan Cathedral.

A very rural diocese

The strength of the Episcopal Church in Aberdeen and Orkney was for many years in the countryside and along the coast. 19^th century missionary work focussed on Donside and Deeside, and when North Sea Oil was discovered in the 1970s, the coastal charges were much strengthened. Historically the diocese is a blend of village churches, new buildings in housing estates, private chapels in stately homes, and suburban Victorian edifices.

Notable church people: scholars and inventors

Rev. J.B. Craven of Kirkwall (1875-1914) was a prolific historian, particularly of the church in Orkney. Rev. John Comper (1823-1903) wrote extensively, worked amongst the poor and was instrumental in founding St. Margaret’s Convent in Aberdeen. His son was the noted church architect Sir Ninian Comper. Rev. William Shannon, provost of St. Andrew’s Cathedral (1909 – 1995) invented the ‘Pisky Pub Sign’, the distinctive sign that marks almost every Episcopal church in Scotland.

Bishops of the United Diocese of Aberdeen

Bishops of the United Diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney (most recent first):

• 2018- present:  Anne Catherine Dyer
• 2007-2016:  Robert Arthur Gillies
• 1992-2006:  Andrew Bruce Cameron
• 1978-1992:  Frederick Charles Darwent
• 1973-1977:  Ian Forbes Begg
• 1956-1972:  Frederick Easson
• 1943-1955:  Herbert William Hall
• 1917-1943:  Frederick Llewellyn Deane
• 1912-1917:  Anthony Mitchell
• 1906-1911:  Rowland Ellis
• 1883-1905:  Arthur Gascoigne Douglas:
• 1864-1883:  Thomas George Suther