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On this episode, Alli sits down with the Rt. Rev. Anne Dyer, bishop of the Diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney in the Scottish Episcopal Church. Bishop Anne shares her story coming from her home parish and the encouragement she received from her vicar to serve in the church, before women were ordained. Bishop Anne has been a first in many things: she was in the first group of female deacons, first group of female priests, and first female bishop. She talks about the push back she has experienced, as well as the support she has received and how she maintains balance in her life.

Bishop Anne talks about the importance of “resetting her compass” and sabbath in her ministry as a bishop and as Christians, something she hopes to become a model for her clergy—that rest and renewal are critical to ministry. She also discusses the impact art has had on her spiritual and prayer life, she tries to be in an art gallery a week. She has brought this love of art to ministry as a bishop by starting a Monday morning blog post called “Picturing Prayer” on the Diocese’s Facebook pageand website, offering a picture, reflection, and prayer.

Bishop Anne’s visit to ECCT is purely out of building personal relationships and mutual interest, as the Episcopal Church in Connecticut and the Scottish Episcopal Church have a longstanding relationship going back to the ordination of Samuel Seabury… whose mitre sparked a theological conversation between Bishop Anne and Bishop Douglas just before the podcast recording!

Alli and Bishop Anne discuss what God is up to in the secular country of Scotland and in the Diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney. She is known in Scotland as the “Bishop on the bus” choosing to take public transport around the town and on her visitations, including visitations to far off islands at the tip of the country.

Bishop Anne talks about what she has seen and has taken away so far from her trip to Connecticut, and asks for the Episcopal Church in Connecticut to pray for the Diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney.

About our guest:

The Rt. Rev. Anne Dyer is the bishop of the Diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney in the Scottish Episcopal Church. (Check out: https://aoepiscopal.scot/)  She was elected by their College of Bishops in November 2017 and consecrated in March 2018. "Bishop Anne," as she is called, is the first woman bishop of that diocese and of the Scottish Episcopal Church.

The diocese covers the historic county of Aberdeenshire, and the Orkney and Shetland Island groups.

Originally from England, and the Church of England, Bishop Anne was educated at Bradford Girls' Grammar School, and later studied chemistry at St. Anne's College, Oxford, where she earned a BA and an MA degree. After that she worked as a business and systems analyst at a corporation. She trained for ordained ministry at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford before her ordination, and later at Kings' College in London.  

Anne was ordained in the Church of England as a deacon in 1987 and priest in 1994. She served in the Diocese of Rochester in various parish ministry positions, she also served as their associate advisor for evangelism and later their ministry development officer. 

In 2004 she became the warden, or, principal, for Cranmer Hall, Durham, an evangelical Anglican theological college, and served there until 2011 when she was appointed rector of a church in the Diocese of Edinburgh in the Scottish Episcopal Church. She continued her academic connections there by serving on the council of the Scottish Episcopal Institute, the theological college of the Scottish Episcopal Church.

Anne was elected bishop of the Diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney in 2017 by the House of Bishops of the Scottish Episcopal Church after that diocese failed to choose its own bishop. She was  controversial not only because of her gender and the way she was chosen, but also because of her support for same-sex marriage in a diocese known for being more conservative. Two senior clergy including their dean resigned. 

Bishop Anne's visit to ECCT is another sign of the continuing relationship between our two dioceses that stretch back to the late 1700s when Samuel Seabury was elected by a small group of priests in Connecticut and sent overseas to be consecrated as bishop for the diocese of Connecticut, first bishop for this new  country, and, it can be argued, first bishop outside of the Church of England in what became the global Anglican Communion.