Synod Address 2025

It is my pleasure again to welcome you all to this Synod and especially to welcome the very many new members at the start of a triennium. I hope that you find membership of this synod a rich and rewarding experience. A synod is literally a walking together. It has long been our practice that this annual residential synod is a time of fellowship, learning and prayer as well as the business necessary for good governance. A big new gathering like this can be intimidating. You can feel lost in a crowd. I hope this is a place where each of can make friends. And I hope that our newer members can quickly feel confident to give as well as to receive, to speak as well as listen.

In discussion with archdeacons, a good theme for our synods this year has seemed ‘confident faith and gospel action’. I will speak about both. In talking firstly about ‘confident faith’, I mean a desirable stability and steadfastness. A confident faith will embrace doubt and isn’t at all the same as certainty. I will talk about confident faith with reference to three of the Christian centres I have visited in the past few weeks: Nicaea, Carthage and Rome. I’ll then secondly think about ‘gospel action’, focusing on developments in our diocesan family: our staffing, our hopes, our mission. 

2025 is a special year - the 1700th anniversary of the first formulation of the Nicene Creed in 325 AD. Nicaea lies within our diocese, and there are many Nicaea 1700 events in train. One of the biggest of these has been a memorable pilgrimage for 70 people led by our chaplains in Izmir and Athens, based on the sites of the first four ecumenical councils. 

One of our first pilgrimage destinations was modern-day Iznik, which is ancient Nicaea. The great Council took place under the patronage of the emperor Constantine. Along the lakeside in Iznik today, you can see some piles of stones which archaeologists tell us are the remains of Constantine’s lakeside palace. Until recently, there was no sign of the basilica where the Council met. But rather recently, the level of water in the lake has started to fall. And it has revealed the outline of a basilica, which the experts say is very likely the site where that famous Council took place. When we visited, the local authority was erecting a viewing gallery to make it easier to see. There is something quite remarkable about the long-lost site of the Nicaean Council becoming visible again. Perhaps it is a sign. 

What was the achievement of the 325 Council? Pope Alexander of Alexandria, together with the young deacon Athanasius, successfully opposed the Arian heresy. The Council therefore ruled that Jesus Christ was not a creature but is ‘true God of true God’. Jesus is truly a divine being, not something less than divine. This Council in Nicaea, together with the following three councils in Constantinople, Ephesus and Chalcedon, established the fundamental Christian belief that Jesus Christ is truly God and truly human. 

Does this matter? Very much so, because it bears directly on us and our salvation. As Athanasius said: ‘What God creates only God can save’. If Christ was not God, then he cannot be our Saviour. At the same time, as Gregory of Nazianzus said, ‘what is not assumed is not healed’. Only if God takes on our full human nature, body, mind and spirit, can he understand our human situation with all its experiences, emotions and limitations and heal it. So the unique divinity and humanity of Christ is the key to a saving faith. It is the core reason why Christian faith is worth believing in. 

Yet, today, all the survey evidence suggests that most people in our churches do not get it. The apparently reasonable understanding of Arius that Jesus was a very good man is much more popular than the radical but orthodox understanding that Jesus is truly God. The ancient heresy of Arianism is still alive and well. The world and its human inhabitants are in a mess and need saving today as much as they ever did. If younger people in particular are going to be convinced that the Church has something to offer it will be because they hear a full-blooded version of Christian faith, a fully saving faith. So there is a job to do in reclaiming, inhabiting and proclaiming Nicaean faith.   
Paralleling this pilgrimage, I was privileged to visit last month the ancient Christian centre of Carthage – modern day Tunis in North Africa. I was invited to share in the consecration of Ashley Null as the new Anglican bishop in North Africa. As Constantinople and Ephesus were port cities and ancient Christian centres of the East, so Carthage was an equivalent centre and port city of the ancient Christian West. 

My theological hero, St. Augustine of Hippo, spent nine years teaching in Carthage. In the period that the Eastern Councils were meeting, Augustine developed his own very powerful theology of the Holy Trinity. Augustine’s fundamental insight, which you don’t find in the Nicene Creed, is that God is a Trinity of Love: the Father who loves, the Son who is beloved, and the Spirit who is the love between them. And Augustine, in his work on the Trinity, gives a remarkable account of human salvation is a matter of being remade in the image of this Trinitarian God. Augustine remains very important for us today, not least because the new Pope Leo is an Augustinian friar. 

But Carthage was also a place of martyrdom. It was where St Cyprian was beheaded in the third century for refusing to sacrifice to pagan gods. In the same century, Perpetua and Felicity were martyred because of their refusal to renounce their Christian faith. The story of Perpetua is one of the most moving stories from the early church. Perpetua was a new mother, and Felicity was 8 months pregnant. Their faith and their love of Jesus Christ were so strong that they were prepared to pay the ultimate price, despite the pleadings of their family. Helen and I were able to visit the Roman amphitheatre and the cell in the middle of the amphitheatre where they were held. The cell had an opening at the top so the women could hear the roar of the crowd. They would have been released from the cell, and then out of one of the other entrances to the amphitheatre, the means of their death would have been released – probably hungry wild animals of some kind. To visit that cell in the middle of the amphitheatre was a very emotional experience. 

The Anglican church of St. George in modern Tunis was consecrated by one of my predecessors as Bishop of Gibraltar. It has a stained glass window over the altar. The left-hand panel depicts St Cyprian and St Augustine, the right-hand panel depicts Perpetua and Felicity. It was the Western saint Tertullian who said: ‘The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church’. If visiting Iznik, Ephesus and Constantinople brings you close to the fundamental beliefs of our faith, visiting Carthage brings you close to the cost of the witness to that faith measured in blood. 
I have talked about visits to two great ancient Christian centres, Asia Minor and Carthage. My third visit was to another great Christian centre, namely Rome. It was my privilege to be part of an Anglican delegation to Rome for the funeral of Pope Francis and then a little later for the inauguration of Pope Leo. Both of these were huge occasions which captured the attention of global media in an extraordinary way. 

There were 10 people in the Anglican delegation. We represented provinces and dioceses from around the world. At the funeral, our leader was a woman archbishop from the Amazon, for the Inauguration our leader was an archbishop from the Solomon Islands. Ecumenical guests were seated on the stage at the front. So if you looked at the stage from St. Peter’s Square on the left were cardinals, catholic archbishops and ecumenical guests and on the right were the state presidents, prime ministers and royalty. You could say it was a matter of family and friends. The friends, the state guests were on one side. Family, including ecumenical family, were on the other side. 
Looking out over St. Peter’s Square and the roads leading to it there were people as far as the eye could see. They said there were 350,000 people at Pope Francis’s funeral. It was the most people I have ever seen in one place. For the Anglican church to be given 10 places at the heart of these occasions was a gesture of truly generous hospitality and welcome. 

Several people have asked me what I think the priorities of Pope Leo will be. Since the inauguration, I have had opportunity to talk to one of the cardinals who was in the conclave. I asked him why they chose Leo. Obviously, cardinals are sworn to secrecy! But he was able to say that one of the distinctive features of Leo is that he brings with him a sense of peace. He has a strong sense of inner peace which he conveys to those who meet him. That is obviously a great gift for a Christian leader. Leo’s first words when he appeared on the balcony at St. Peter’s Square were ‘peace be with you’. So peace and peace-making are a top priority. And that is crucial in a world where there is so much conflict and where we are closer to nuclear conflict than we have ever been in my lifetime. 

Secondly, Leo in his public pronouncements and sermons, has stressed Christian unity. The Catholic church sought a Pope who could unify the church, who could bring together those who supported Francis’s progressive reforms and those who opposed them. In his inaugural sermon, Leo said: ‘Brothers and sisters, I would that our first great desire be for a united Church, a sign of unity and communion, which becomes a leaven for a reconciled world.’  As an Augustinian friar, Leo is concerned for building love and unity between people after the image of the Trinitarian God. 
I am encouraged by the priorities and emphases of Pope Leo XIV. In particular, at a time when the unity of the Anglican Communion feels fragile, I am particularly happy to feel the support and encouragement of our much larger Roman Catholic big sister, and to know the priorities of its new chief shepherd, for peace, unity and love. 

I have been speaking about confident faith. I have mentioned the legacy, heritage and enduring value of the first four Ecumenical Councils in Asia Minor. I have talked about the inspiration of the theologians and martyrs of the Western Church whose memory I encountered in Carthage. And I have spoken about my recent visits to Rome: the extraordinary power of the Church Catholic to gather people from across the globe, the enduring interest of Christian faith to so many, the Church’s message of peace and unity. These seem to me strong and solid grounds for confidence in our faith. They give me and I hope us all a sense of our faith’s authenticity, stability and enduring value. 
Let me turn now and more briefly to our own diocese and some of the gospel activity we are engaged in, much of which we will cover more fully during our synod. 

First of all, we are in a period of some significant staff changes. Mike Fegan, the chair of our Diocesan Board of Finance is leaving us at the end of the month  after seven years in post. Susan Stelfox, our head of finance is leaving us. There will be opportunity to pay tribute to both of them during the Annual Meeting of the Diocesan Board of Finance, the DBF, on Wednesday. Our diocesan secretary, Andrew, is going to be leaving us later in the year and after the next Bishop’s Council meeting. It is too early to be saying goodbye to Andrew, but he will be hugely missed and there much to do by way of handover. 

Meanwhile, there are new appointments to make. I am delighted that Stephen Green has accepted my invitation to be our new DBF Chairman. Stephen is a former chairman and chief executive of HSBC, a former Minister of Trade, an ordained member of the Church of England and the author of several books on European Affairs. It would be hard to imagine someone better qualified to be our new DBF Chair. Stephen is with us for the first 24 hours or so of this Synod. Please do greet him and make him feel welcome. 

The process for appointing a new diocesan secretary has already begun with a recruitment consultant. The appointing panel will include our existing lay and clergy chairs and an experienced diocesan secretary from another diocese. One of Stephen’s first assignments will be to work with me and the panel on the appointment of Andrew’s successor with the intention that we have a period of overlap in office. 

An interim accountant has been appointed to cover the period after Susan leaves. We have budgetary approval for the appointment of a new Head of Finance and Administration and a new accountant, and these will be appointed by the new Diocesan Secretary. At the same time, we are bidding for funding for a new Head of Strategy. 

Bishop Andrew joined us at the end of February. His consecration in Canterbury and installation in Gibraltar were causes of great celebration for the diocese. Bishop Andrew has begun visiting chaplaincies across Europe, and I am delighted that he is leading the Bible Studies at this Synod. This is your opportunity to start to get to know your new Suffragan Bishop. One of Bishop Andrew’s particular areas of experience is in strategy development, so I have already asked him to head up a new bishop’s strategy working group, a project he will be taking forward with a small number of others. We will be hearing a good deal about strategy at our synod tomorrow. 

I don’t wish to steal anyone’s thunder, but in considering ‘practical action’, it might be helpful to say that our recent thinking as a Bishop’s Staff Team has led us to work out the 5 points in our longstanding diocesan vision into four blocks of action. These are:
1.    Building up chaplaincies with new work and starting up new chaplaincies
2.    Development and training (curates, clergy development, lay training, MES)
3.    Youth and children’s work
4.    Our Gifts to the World (Social and racial justice, creation care, ecumenism).  

There is a lot of energy and excitement in each of these blocks. I am not going to unpack them now, but there will be an opportunity for discussion in two sessions tomorrow. We have been allocated by the Church Commissioners an envelope of funding or £9million over nine years. That sounds a lot, and it is, and if we can get more we will. But this envelope of funding is available in principle to develop work in the blocks I have outlined. 

A strategy needs money and people to implement it. For most of the time I have been bishop we’ve not had much central church money and we’ve had no spare central people capacity. But that is changing. There is now the possibility of developing some concrete strategic diocesan plans, with aims and timescales and people and projects in support of our diocesan vision. 

So we have new people including a new suffragan bishop, we have the beginnings of new strategic thinking and we have the possibility of funding to support that thinking. These are all grounds for being hopeful and excited about what may lie ahead in the next few years. 

There is also something else, which I could describe as capacity for growth. We have had standalone stipendiary archdeacons for a few years now. Our archdeacons have worked hard in appointing new clergy. In many cases these appointments have been creative: finding someone who loves Romania to work in Bucharest, finding someone with an Indian passport to work in Moscow, persuading some small French chaplaincies to work together so they can have a house for duty priest; setting up a job share in the Netherlands with the Old Catholics. Last weekend I was in a small Italian chaplaincy, Taormina, and the council were delighted with the new level of pastoral provision they have: the treasurer said to me: for the first time in 40 years we don’t need to rely on locums.’ Due in part to the clearsightedness of Mike Fegan as DBF chair, the reserves held by the DBF are now strong so we can offer our chaplaincies support in terms of both hardship and mission opportunity funding. There is a good and healthy spirit in the diocese. 

We therefore have the capacity for growth. Not only that but we are actually growing. The Church of England produces statistics on church attendance for each diocese. These statistics indicate that in 2024 the average weekly attendance across the diocese of adults and children together grew by 7.9% compared with 2023. That was the second largest level of growth of any Church of England diocese. Average weekly attendance of children in church grew from 2023 to 2024 in our diocese by 11% and numbers of adults by 7.5%. We are starting from a relatively low base and we are still getting back to pre-Covid levels. But that growth is encouraging evidence of spiritual life and vitality. 
There is much talk in church circles about a quiet revival of faith amongst younger people and especially amongst young men. That fits with my experience. We confirmed six young adult men in Istanbul recently. I confirmed 11 younger adults in Haarlem a few weeks ago. I was hearing just recently about a young man who is a vet in Budapest who picked up a copy of St. John’s gospel, read it, said yes, this is true and believed. Young people are attracted to confident faith which is taken seriously by those who practice it. To return to Perpetua and Felicity and Cyprian: people will only be convinced by our testimony if our faith is something we value as highly as we value our lives. Faith in Jesus Christ either matters decisively or it doesn’t matter at all. 

To conclude: I’ve been talking about gospel faith and practical action. I have been heartened through the visits I have been privileged to make to feel a stronger contact and resonance than ever with the roots of our faith. Our task is to proclaim this ancient faith afresh in our generation. I can see abundant ways in which we are doing this in our diocese. I really believe we may be on the threshold of something new in terms of our growth, our reach and our impact. I hope and pray that in this synod we may further discern the purposes that God has for us and then be obedient in following his leading. Finally, I hope you sense my own personal sense of excitement about our diocese and our future. My last word is to say a huge thank you to you the lay people and clergy of the Diocese in Europe. It is you, your efforts, your love for each other, your concern to welcome and to care, which make this diocese the amazing place that it is.  

Bishop Robert Innes