The General Assembly
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INTRODUCTION
The General Assembly, which meets each year in Edinburgh,
has the authority to make laws determining how the Church
of Scotland operates. It also is the highest court of
the Church (the other courts being the kirk session
and the presbytery) in which cases can be heard in matters
of litigation.
The 2010 General Assembly closed on 26 May. The 2011 Assembly will open on 21 May.
Highlights from the 2010 Assembly
You can watch some of the highlights on our webcast pages, including Professor Mona Siddiqui's address, the Special Service for the 450th anniversary of the Reformation and interview with the retiring Moderator, Very Rev William Hewitt.
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Press releases issued
during the General Assembly are available on our news pages here. A special Assembly issue of Good News from the Communications Department has a round up of the decisions made.
For audio, video and text summaries of each day by the Rev Douglas Aitken, visit our webcast pages here. |
The Moderator and Lord High Commissioner
The Rev John Cairns Christie was appointed the Moderator for the General Assembly for 2010. Read his biography here.
The Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland 2010 was the Right Honourable the Lord
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Wilson of Tillyorn. Read his opening and closing speeches here.
Special Commissions
A Special Commission on Structure and Change was set up in 2006 by the General
Assembly to identify and report on the effect of changes
to the structure and organisation of the Church, and its final
report was made to the 2008 General Assembly. The report included the recommendation that a Special Commission on the Third Article Declaratory be appointed.
This reported to the General Assembly in 2010.
The 2009 General Assembly set up a Special Commission to examine questions relating to homosexuality and the ordination and induction of ministers. This is due to report to the General Assembly in 2011.
Act and regulations
The acts and regulations of the Church of Scotland which
were updated by decisions taken at the 2009 General Assembly
are available online on our
Previous Assemblies
Archived reports, minutes and daily
papers from previous Assemblies are available on the
For archived daily audio news updates, podcasting service and video highlights from previous Assemblies, visit our Webcast pages.
Background and history
Click here
for more information on the history and structure of the
General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and a guide
to proceedings.
* To view PDF documents we recommend using Adobe Reader software, which is available to download for free from the Adobe website.
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