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New Moderator-Designate Announced

Wednesday April 2 2014

The Rev John Chalmers has been named as the new Moderator-Designate of the 2014 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

Mr Chalmers, who is the Principal Clerk to the General Assembly, has been given the role under unprecedented circumstances, after the previous Moderator-Designate, the Rev Dr Angus Morrison, withdrew for health reasons.

Mr Chalmers, who was born in Bothwell, South Lanarkshire and studied divinity at Glasgow University, served as a parish minister in Dumbartonshire and Edinburgh between 1979 and 1995. After that he worked in the Church's Board of Ministry (and its successor, the Ministries Council) until becoming Principal Clerk in 2010. He was appointed a Chaplain to the Queen in Scotland last year.

He currently lives in Dunfermline with his wife, Liz.

Mr Chalmers said: “It is an unexpected privilege and a real honour to be entrusted with this role at this time. If the Assembly supports my nomination, I will seek above all else to hold the people of the Church of Scotland together in peace and unity.

“My focus will be on those things that unite us. Within the Church we have to learn to live with our differences. We have an urgent need to recruit women and men to train to be ministers and it’s time to let society know that there is something very meaningful about living the life of faith.

“Women and men of Christian faith have motives, values and a sense of meaning that should be among the life choices which are seriously discussed in the public square.”

Mr Chalmers, 61, whose older sister June had Down’s Syndrome, has spent most of his life supporting the work of disabilities charity Enable, and for 20 years he was a member of the Board of Donaldson’s, the National School for the Deaf. He said that in his Moderatorial year he hopes to visit many special needs facilities, because he believes that some of the greatest works of service are done by people who do not get enough affirmation or public recognition.

The current Moderator, the Rt Rev Lorna Hood, tweeted: "Congratulations to Rev John Chalmers on being nominated Moderator Designate. We were in same year at Trinity [College, Glasgow]. Class of 77!"

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