THE Free Church yesterday voted to hold a special assembly later this year to negotiate peace between warring factions in the church.
The Rev Professor Donald Macleod called for a ''ceasefire'' in an emotional speech to its General Assembly in Edinburgh.
Professor Macleod, who is at the centre of the controversy, said: ''The Free Church has been compared to Northern Ireland and perhaps I represent Gerry Adams and the Republicans.'' He and his wife and family had felt under threat since 1993. He said every Free Church assembly since then had centred upon him.
The church is deeply divided between supporters and opponents of Professor Macleod, who was declared to be victim of a church ''conspiracy'' by Sheriff John Horsburgh in May 1996 when he acquitted him at Edinburgh Sheriff Court of charges alleging he molested five women.
Every congregation in the Free Church will be invited to be represented at the special assembly, which will be chaired by this year's Moderator, the Rev Donald Macleod, formerly of Kingussie Free Church.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article