Priest’s licence revoked after moving to join Free Church of England
by Madeleine Davies, Church Times:
A PRIEST who left the Church of England to join the Free Church of England (FCE) has had his licence revoked, 13 months after being received into his new ministry.
The Revd Brett Murphy, who was ordained in the Anglican Church of Australia and later served in the dioceses of Carlisle and Leicester, was received into the ministry of the FCE and licensed as Presbyter-in-Charge of Emmanuel Church, Morecambe, on 9 July 2023.
In a statement on an online fundraising page (“Save the Murphy Family from Homelessness!”) published last month, Mr Murphy said that on 9 August he had been “dismissed with immediate effect from the Free Church of England, and my licence was revoked following a disciplinary meeting in which many false accusations were made against me”. He described being “persecuted time and time again for bravely speaking God’s truth and making a stand for righteousness, putting my head above the battlements, exposing corruption within the Church and calling false teachers to repent”.
The FCE has not commented on Mr Murphy’s account of his dismissal. A statement issued on its website on 21 August said: “We are committed to ensuring that matters of Church discipline are addressed appropriately, and we believe that such matters should not be judged by public opinion or debated on social media. Our priority is to uphold the integrity of this process for all involved.
“While there have been personal attacks and misinformation circulating, particularly towards the Bishop Primus, we choose not to engage in public disputes, as doing so would compromise the trust placed in us to handle this situation responsibly.”
On Thursday of last week, an online statement from the FCE Central Trust executive council said that services at Emmanuel had been suspended “until such time as the Custodian Trustees can be assured that services will be conducted with proper dignity”. On the previous three Sunday, they wrote, services had been “deliberately disrupted”.
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