The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Move brings bishop ‘home’
Michael Alexander meets the newly installed Bishop of St Andrews, Dunkeld and Dunblane, Ian Paton, at the seat of his Scottish Episcopal diocese in Perth
Seated in Perth’s architecturally historic St Ninian’s Cathedral, which recently underwent a £1 million restoration, the Bishop of St Andrews, Dunkeld and Dunblane, Ian Paton, is explaining how his recent installation ceremony reflected the Scottish Episcopal Church’s “hope for the future” – and how the “Bishop Bling” he now wears each day reminds him of where he’s come from and where he’s going.
“The cross which sits next to my heart represents the people I served for 21 years,” he says, explaining that it was a farewell gift from his former parish at Old St Paul’s Church, Edinburgh, where he was rector since 1997.
“The ‘Episcopal Ring’ I’m wearing – a bishop’s ring featuring a purple amethyst – is a gift from the people of the diocese of St Andrews to me.
“Amethysts are often seen as a symbol of healing. One of the reasons for the church existing is to help with healing – to put things back together. So, the ‘bling’ is like a link with two sets of people before and now. That’s how I think of it.”
Born and raised in Liverpool, Bishop Ian, 61, a married father-of-four, feels as if he has “come home” to Perth because his Fife-born dad, from Kingskettle, was brought up in the Craigie area of the city, just two streets away from where the official bishop’s house is now. The bishop’s aunt, uncle and cousins still live in the Fair City.
Having joined the choir at an Anglican church in Liverpool aged eight “to avoid Sunday School”, he admits he wasn’t particularly interested in the faith side of religion as a youngster.
It was at the age of 21, however, while studying history at Cambridge University that he had an overwhelming desire to become a priest – and he was ordained aged 25.
“It came on me,” he smiles. “I didn’t decide. It was a bit like falling in love. It just kind of happens and you go with it. It just seems right. I didn’t feel as if I had an alternative. I did it because the most real thing I could perceive was God. It wasn’t an idea – to me it was a person. The most real thing I could perceive and understand through the trials and tribulations of life.”
Bishop Ian says it can be difficult being a person of faith because you can “think of all the arguments against it”.
However, he always differentiates between “church and heaven”, adding: “Traditional Christian doctrine says there is no church in heaven. So even the faultiness of the church didn’t put me off God.”
Bishop Ian is “well aware” of the challenges facing churches in general, with declining congregations and the need to define their “relevance” in 21st Century society.
The Episcopal church has about 7,000 members in the whole diocese and Episcopalians account for about just 1% of the Scottish population.
However, he believes that because the Episcopal church is relatively small and is a “bit in-between” being protestant and Catholic, he feels it’s a “little more nimble”.
Bishop Ian says that even within Anglican churches worldwide, the Scottish Episcopal Church has been able to “move more quickly on some things”.
For example, more than a year ago, it became the first to approve same-sex marriage in church – although there has been a difference of opinion with one Edinburgh Episcopal church making moves to leave in protest.
“A lot of churches have got big problems with what to do with their history,” he says.
“And yet we have been able to move and respond to the needs of LGBTI people who come to us and say ‘Can we get married in church?’
“We do respect history and tradition, but because we are small we are able to get together to talk about what this means and how we should respond – questions that other churches have got to take a lot longer to think about.”
The bishop is conscious that we live in times where a contentious issue such as Brexit has led to divisions on issues including immigration. However, he believes the church has an important role to play in ensuring that such issues don’t throw people apart.
As a relative newcomer to the Perthshire, Fife and Stirlingshire area, Bishop Ian is still learning about local issues and geography.
He is particularly concerned about young people in rural parts of the diocese where it’s very difficult for them to find jobs – and where the wealth gap is widening. His priority is to get to know the communities he represents and for more people to understand that the Christian gospel boils down to “love”.
It was a bit like falling in love. It just kind of happens and you go with it. It just seems right