In Scotland, the Church of Scotland (the Kirk) is established by virtue of the Scottish reformation statutes, the arrangements for the Union of the Parliaments, various legal cases and the Church of Scotland Act 1921. The Church of Scotland is catholic, Trinitarian and adheres to the Scottish Reformation. It acknowledges a duty to bring the ordinances of religion to all the parishes of Scotland. It also maintains congregations in various capitals of Europe, including London.
The Church of Scotland was reformed and its relationship with Roman Catholicism severed, by four Acts of the Scottish Parliament in 1560. The General Assembly Act 1592 c.8 finally settled its governance as Presbyterian, and it has remained so despite a brief attempt to impose prelacy in the 17th century. Commissioners from the Church played a major role in the framing of the Westminster Confession of Faith of 1646, and that Confession was adopted as the Kirk’s principal subordinate standard of faith and approved as such by statute. Tension between the Presbyterian and Anglican churches north and south of the Border led to both being specifically protected in the arrangements for the Union of the Parliaments in 1707.
In the early 19th century the growth of an evangelical party within the Kirk led it to two important attempts to reform itself. One related to the way in which ministers were called to a particular charge. The other concerned the ability of a Presbytery to create a new charge and give its minister a seat in Presbytery. In both instances the civil courts struck down the reforms. The government of the day refusing redress, about one third of the ministers, elders and members of the Church withdrew to form the Free Church of Scotland. Led by Thomas Chalmers, one of the founders of the Evangelical Alliance, they claimed that the Church should be free of state interference. As it happened, within thirty years the appointment of ministers and the powers of the Church of Scotland were reformed by statute as part of Victorian developments in social legislation and administration no longer based on the parish system.
Also in the 19th century various moves had resulted in church unions among minor groups. Most of these came together to form the United Free Church of Scotland in 1900, a union which itself gave rise to the very important Free Church Case of 1904 establishing that in matters of property the trustees of a denomination hold for those adhering to the original purposes of the denomination.
In the early 20th century the Church of Scotland and the United Free Church negotiated ‘Articles Declaratory of the Constitution of the Church of Scotland in Matters Spiritual’. These were declared lawful for the Church to hold by the Church of Scotland Act 1921, clarifying the relationships of the Kirk and the civil authority. Union was achieved in 1929 when the two churches formally accepted the ‘Articles’ and a Basis and Plan of Union. (Subsequently, minor other denominations have united with the Church of Scotland). The ‘Articles’ affirm the divine Headship of the Lord Jesus Christ, and its reception from Him of its right to be subject to no civil authority to legislate and to adjudicate finally on all matters of doctrine, worship, government and discipline in the Kirk, while recognising the authority of the civil magistrate in its similarly God-given sphere. This reflects historically the close relationship of the churches of the Reformation, both Lutheran and Reformed, with the State. The Reformers held a very high view of the State in the providential purposes of God and saw the civil magistrate or ruler as a minister of God for the protection of the Church, for the enforcement of morals and the upholding of true religion. That said, the Kirk has never been supine in its relations with the state.
The conciliar structure of the Kirk is now composed of Kirk sessions, presbyteries and the General Assembly, the latter meeting annually (Synods have been abolished). The Moderator of the General Assembly, elected for each Assembly thereafter, plays an ambassadorial role, but has no special or official status. To each Assembly the Crown sends a High Commissioner, who sits in a gallery that is technically outside the Assembly Hall. He or she addresses the Assembly but does not influence or control its debates. In former years the debates of the Kirk acted in many ways as a Scottish parliament. How far this continues after devolution still remains to be seen.
