Fowey church Cornwall sexism row Andy Virr speaks out

Andy Virr stood down as chairman along with other members of Fowey parochial church council (PCC) last month following the committee’s decision to advertise for a male-only priest.

Residents of Fowey accused the PCC of being sexist and angrily opposed the legal resolution which was made under a House of Bishops Declaration. The matter received national attention, even being discussed by a critical Phillip Schofield on ITV’s This Morning before he faced his own crisis.

Following a heated meeting of the PCC at the church in May – at which a parishioner accused the decision as being “profoundly wrong” while another stated that Fowey was “the last church, probably in the world, to be totally sexist” – Mr Virr has decided to step away from the church, St Fimbarrus. He is critical that the new committee may run the church “over a single issue”.

Mr Virr – who sits as Conservative member for Fowey, Par, Tywardreath and Golant on Cornwall Council and is a consultant at the Royal Cornwall Hospital’s emergency department – says he understands how people outside the Church may have considered the choice of a male rather than female vicar as sexist.

Former church chairman Andy Virr outside the Fowey church (Image: Lee Trewhela)

However, he stressed: “The only criticism of us is that we are a church that takes the Bible seriously.” The former PCC chairman said he found it “a bit scary” that people from outside the church were trying force a change on the “traditional teaching of what we see in the Bible”.

Speaking from inside the grand church in the heart of Fowey, which sadly only has a regular congregation of about 30 to 40 people these days, Mr Virr said: “I completely understand how, if you’re not part of the Church, the decision where we make a preference for a male vicar completely clashes with modern society. I totally get that. I think we’re probably seeing more and more that the established church is going to clash with modern society, whether it’s gender – the Church’s belief that God created people male and female – or the position on marriage within the Church should be for a man and a woman.

“We are going to find that actually our communities are not going to support that. That’s what’s happened here in Fowey really. We’ve been a small congregation over the last four years, just trying to hold things together after we lost two-thirds of the congregation who left the Church of England to form another congregation here in Fowey [the evangelical Anchor church formed by previous vicar, the Rev Phillip de Grey-Warter].

“A small group of people have put a huge amount of time in to keep things going. I’ve been part of the preaching rota, leading services and doing the music as have other people as well.

“One of the processes of appointing a new vicar here was a creating a parish profile, which is essentially a job description, and part of that was deciding whether we would support a male or female incumbent. At the heart of that, is where you look for guidance for that. I firmly believe that for a Christian church that the Bible is the authority that we look at for these decisions.”

Former church chairman Andy Virr outside the Fowey church (Image: Lee Trewhela)

He added: “Reading the Bible, you can land on two options – one is the complementarian view that says absolutely that men and women are equal but are different; that their genders create different roles within marriage and within the Church. Other people might read the Bible and come up with the decision that the New Testament is so strong on equality that you can have equality of the sexes in both status and and roles. I think those are two very reasonable positions to come to.

“My passion is that you come to that conclusion having wrestled with the Bible. That was the process that we went through as a governing body of the church. We were anxious that we were a small congregation and we didn’t want to fall out over something we felt wasn’t a primary issue but was still important. We came to a sort of classic Church of England compromise. There were a range of views within the PCC, both the complementarian and egalitarian view.”

That “compromise” led to a decision by the PCC that it would welcome women to teach, preach, lead services and take communion, but would look for a man to provide the actual leadership of the church. It was a notion that upset a lot of people. I asked Mr Virr that if the PCC would allow women to carry out those roles, why not allow a woman to take on the overall job as priest-in-charge?

“It’s a compromise,” he said. “It’s accepting that we weren’t all on the same page, we wrestled with it and came to a compromise. It was a very gracious decision from both sides, particularly for those people who held the egalitarian view, for a spirit of unity.”

Earlier this year, the neighbouring parishes of Tywardreath and Golant welcomed a female vicar, the Reverend Shona Hoad, as priest-in-charge, with many residents believing she would have been ideal for Fowey too. Mr Virr said there has been some misunderstanding over this.

“The plan was to combine us with two other parishes because the Deanery was reducing the number of incumbents because of financial pressures. The two other parishes didn’t want to follow us down that route [of having a male-only vicar] and we respected that. They were then able to give an appointment to a lovely female vicar who was only ever able to work part-time, so there was actually a lot of misinformation that she could have worked in Fowey.

“I totally get that from the outside that looks sexist, but it came from a decision of where do you look for guidance? The Bible. That’s why what happened in the end is troubling because we want to live in a society where we respect the freedoms of religions, whether that be Islam, Hinduism, Judaism or Christianity.”

Mr Virr added: “It felt like what happened in Fowey was that people felt strongly from outside the church who weren’t regular church attenders, and I totally understand where that misunderstanding came from. It felt like it was okay to come into our church, even though they weren’t regular members, and force a change on the local church. That, for me, is a bit scary because I think increasingly if the Church holds to its traditional teaching of what we see in the Bible, we’re increasingly going to clash with our communities.

“Is it tolerant for community members, however well intended, to come in and change Church practice because it doesn’t fit with their modern thinking? That, for me, is a concern.

“I wish the new people running the church every success. My concern is that it will be a single issue to change and will they be willing and keen to run the services, make the coffee, sort all the rotas and keep the fabric of the building going?”

Some previous leading members of the church have chosen not to return to St Fimbarrus since last month’s changing of the guard.

Mr Virr said: “A lot of people who have done all the work in the church have sadly felt the need to step back because of this. That’s a concern. One of the reasons why we’re so passionate about defending something that could be seen as sexist by the community is that ultimately we believe the Bible has wonderful things to tell people.

“This is a difficult time. I think a number of us are taking time to reflect and see how the dust settles. It will be difficult to be here if the authority of the Bible is somehow going to play second fiddle to what is the view of the town. It was very odd to have people voted on to the church committee who rarely come to church and whose voting papers were seconded by people who also very rarely come to church. It was a very odd situation.”

He also argued against the notion that Fowey church was “the last church, probably in the world” to agree on employing a male-only vicar.

“The criticism that was levelled at Fowey was that we were the last church in the country to take this view. That’s not true – there are many churches in the country and in Cornwall, whether that be in Truro or Liskeard or into Devon and Plymouth, conservative evangelical churches, the Catholic church, Islam and Judaism which have similar views of equality but difference in role. We have to be cautious not to change things because they don’t chime with modern society.”

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How does Mr Virr’s belief sit with his other roles as a Cornwall councillor and an Emergency Department consultant at Treliske?

“I work with many amazing women. I’ve worked with many female chief executives at the hospital, I’ve got female consultant colleagues, I’ve got a female leader at the council and I see a complete distinction between how the Bible says the Church should be run with the rest of society. The Bible is really pro women in business, involvement with the Church and family. I’m nervous about state interference with faith and in a sense we’ve had a bit of community interference here. I think we want to live in a society where we can respect religious views that are personal.

“I think people who have worked with me would not say that I demonstrate sexist or misogynistic ways of working or traits. That’s why that was a hard thing to hear levelled at myself and the church. Some of the hate on social media was unpleasant and painful.”