Global funding plan could answer prayer for way to save Kirk college

The Kirk plans to shut the 100-year-old St Colm's College in Inverleith Terrace in August and sell the building to help meet its budget deficit.

Now delegates to a five-day international missionary conference in the Capital say churches in other parts of the world could step in with funding to help save the college.

They are pleading with the Kirk to suspend the closure for two years to allow churches in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas to develop a plan to manage the building as an international centre for mission studies.

The Edinburgh 2010 conference, which began last night, marks the centenary of the World Missionary Conference of 1910, regarded as a key event in modern church history.

Some of the 1910 delegates stayed in St Colm's and some of the delegates to the current conference are staying there too.

In an open letter to the Kirk they say: "It has come to us as a shock and as something beyond understanding that the Church of Scotland a week or two before the Edinburgh 1910 centenary has decided to sell this house and to put an end to the history of women's mission and world service in this historic centre.

"The signal which is sent by this decision fills us with sadness."

The letter acknowledges the pressures facing the Kirk and says: "The resources needed to sustain and develop St Colm's cannot be found in Scotland alone."

It suggests St Colm's could be transformed into an international ecumenical students' house or research centre based on a "shared ownership concept" with other churches outside Scotland.

The Rev Bobby Anderson, the current director of St Colm's, welcomed the intervention.

He said: "St Colm's has always belonged to the whole church and this idea is a wonderful expression of the way in which the centre of gravity has shifted within the worldwide church. I am excited at the prospect of an international board leading St Colm's into a second century of ecumenical service."

The Very Rev Andrew McLellan, convener of the Kirk's world mission council, said the decision to sell St Colm's had been reached with "considerable sadness" but the financial reality was the college was too expensive as a long-term prospect, with estimated refurbishment costs of around 1.2 million.

He said: "If other interested parties are prepared to buy St Colm's and continue that mission on an international basis then we would welcome that."