Holy war could leave congregation in cold

NO MORE than a dozen people are expected at Strath kirk today. Most will be elderly. All, for days, have been sick to tears. None of them knows if they will be able to take their pew.

"I just hope we can get in," said Donald Robertson, the missionary who is scheduled to take the service at the Skye church tonight. "We could easily be asked to hand over our keys."

For two years Strath and its coursed rubble kirk have been part of a legal – and denominational – battlefield. Two groups have laid claim to the building and its handsome three-storey manse. One is represented by Robertson and his tiny congregation of Free Church of Scotland (Continuing), or FCC.

The other is the organisation from which the 'Continuings' – they use their own shorthand – split nearly a decade ago, the Free Church of Scotland or, as most Scots would call them, lovingly or not, "the Wee Frees".

Now the latter has had its claim to the kirk – and its handsome, three-storey manse – upheld in court.

The FCC has lost control of the kirk and manse in Broadford, Isle of Skye, in a test case in the Court of Session over who owns key properties currently occupied by ministers and their followers.

The Free Church has said it had "no plans to evict anybody" but the FCC looks set to lose Strath and perhaps a dozen more kirks and manses like it. FCC insiders believe the future of their entire faith, 2,000-strong, is in peril.

It feels that way in Skye. "They just cried when they heard," said Robertson, his soft slow Gaelic tones revealing the patience of a man who spent most of his working life as a psychiatric nurse. "Some of these people have been worshipping here all their lives. Their families have been coming here for more than a century. I keep telling them that the church is not a building, that it is people and not bricks and mortar. But the thought of losing this place really hurts."

The FCC and the "residuals" – as the breakaway group call the rump Wee Frees – have had it tough this last decade. Their split wasn't one of doctrine; it was personal. The two groups fell out in the bitter aftermath of the trial of one of the Free Church's most prominent members, Professor Donald Macleod.

He was accused of molesting women but was acquitted in 1996 after a sheriff said he had been the victim of a conspiracy.

Around a fifth of the Free Church's ministers who had supported those involved in bringing the case quit the body to set up on their own, often claiming individual churches and manses in the process. Friends turned against each other; rivals were shunned. Robertson, who initially stayed with the Residuals before joining the FCC two years ago, knows how that felt.

"The split in 2000 was a dreadful thing. In fact, I was opposed to it. When I joined the FCC, I was subjected to a barrage of abuse, letters and e-mails. But it was not without prayers that I made the change."

Gradually the FCC and the old Free Church drifted apart, the former becoming more conservative than the latter. But both continued to be lampooned as dour Highland zealots. Robertson, a man full of laughter outside church, didn't approve of the way traditionally sober services, where hymns are shunned for psalms, were becoming what he called "entertainment".

He said: "One day they even had toy scooters in the church for children. And they blow up balloons. I think in church we should be solemn."

Many congregations, however, simply followed their ministers – and found themselves on the opposite side of the fence from people who believed the same as them. The divide couldn't be clearer in the west end of Glasgow. Around 60 per cent of Partick congregation of the old Free Kirk went with the FCC, leaving 40 per cent with nowhere to worship. The result? Two ostensibly identical Presbyterian congregations worshipping at churches next door to each other on the city's Crow Road.

FCC minister Murdo Angus Macleod admits it is odd. "I have never really seen them, to be honest," he said yesterday. But he knows his church, a 1920s building, and his half-million-pound Jordanhill manse are now at risk. "We are under a measure of threat," the 40-year-old father-of-four said. "The Broadford decision has heightened that threat."

He added: "The Free Church had a huge amount of money invested. That has got to have gone down in the recent recession. Some of the properties are worth a lot of money and would do much for them."

The FCC have turned to the law themselves in the past. They sued to get hold of Free Church assets some years ago. They lost their case and, they claim, agreed not to appeal if the Residuals promised not to come after their kirks. The dispute, some argue, may be about more than money.

"They are doing this because they want to wipe us out," one FCC churchman said privately last night.

Not so, says Iver Martin, minister at Stornoway Free Church and the Wee Frees' media spokesman, insisting that a proposal to let the FCC share buildings was still on the table – as long as they gave up any claim to ownership. "It is not our intention to evict anyone. We are not in the business of putting families into the street.

"What we have here is a dispute where Christian gentlemen have fallen out in the eyes of the world. It is not the first time that has happened but it is unfortunate. At last the latest judgment has given us clarity on ownership. The easy thing to do would be to react with pride and say we'll take back our buildings, but we're not triumphalist."

But Martin admitted he can't speak for every committee of Free Church elders in every presbytery and every parish as they eye valuable property, like that at Strath. "It will be up to individual trustees," he admitted. "I hope they will act practically, wisely and graciously."