The Election

Melbourne archbishops have been elected by the diocesan Synod since 1990. The previous method, by a Board of Electors, was changed at the instigation of the late Archbishop David Penman. His election by the board in 1984 was so controversial that he feared – mistakenly, as has recently been revealedFootnote ² – that he had been a desperate last-minute compromise candidate. Election by a twelve-person board did not offer confidence to an archbishop that they had the full support of the diocese, he believed. Legislation for election by the Synod in future was passed before his untimely death in 1989.

The new process provides for an elected Board of Nominators, comprising nine clergy and nine laity, whose role is to provide candidates to an election meeting of Synod members. The process, with some amendments since its first iteration, has now elected four archbishops: Keith Rayner (1990–1999), Peter Watson (2000–2005), Philip Freier (2006–2025) and Ric Thorpe (2025–). I was a member of the first three Boards of Nominators, chairing the last of the three. Those boards behaved considerably differently to the board responsible for the Thorpe election.

The previous boards were all composed of a balance of Evangelical and catholic Anglicans, with the catholics holding a small majority of both the clergy and lay members in each case. This reflected the balance in the diocese generally at the time. Nevertheless, in each case, the boards worked hard to respect the diversity of the diocese by providing strong Evangelical as well as catholic candidates to the Synod.Footnote ³ Conscious of the huge responsibility we bore, we maintained a certain degree of gravitas both in our work and in our presentations to the electoral Synods. The boards I served on believed it was our role simply to provide a range of suitable candidates, without making any judgement as to who should be elected.

Given the close churchmanship balance in Melbourne Diocese in those years, the voting process in the first three Synod elections was also close, as well as lengthy, lasting several days on each occasion, and progressing through multiple voting cycles. Twice, the election meetings ended without a result, and the boards were sent back to provide a different set of candidates for a fresh Synod meeting. The archbishops elected reflected the diocesan churchmanship balance: Keith Rayner, catholic; Peter Watson, Evangelical; Philip Freier, catholic.

The 2025 election could not have been more different. Thorpe was elected on the Synod meeting’s first day of voting with just three ballots, surprising any who remembered the previous elections. Many were also surprised not only that an English bishop had been chosen, but that no Australian bishop’s name had come before Synod. Synod members have reported that the meeting lacked gravitas, with the election of Thorpe eliciting the kind of loud cheering more common at football matches from groups of young male clergy. Some board members were seen to be openly triumphant when the result was announced.

If many were surprised by the result, others were not. After the election, it was claimed that it was the culmination of years of planning by Melbourne Evangelicals, particularly church-planting enthusiasts. Thorpe was clearly their ideal candidate, as almost his entire ministry has been in church-planting. His episcopal role in London has not been that of a London regional bishop. The ‘Bishop of Islington’ title, used only once previously from 1898 to 1923, was brought out of abeyance in March 2015 so that a planned church-planter’s ministry would be ‘inherently episcopal but not territorial’. Thorpe was consecrated for the role in September that year.Footnote ⁴

The Reverend Dr Peter Carolane, a Melbourne priest with a passion for church-planting, revealed the deliberate planning behind the unexpected election. Writing on social media, he said that ‘like all significant institutional changes, Ric’s election involved multiple factors—some visible, others operating quietly behind the scenes’. He continued:

Dr Carolane said that the church-planting movement, which had grown ‘quietly in the shadows’, was now speaking ‘with one unified voice’. The church planters, whom he described as ‘renewalists’, came together with ‘communities scattered across suburbs and cultures … to support a leader who embodied their vision for the future’. He added, ‘Twenty years ago, few could have imagined that the church planters on the fringe would one day help choose the leader of one of Australia’s most significant dioceses. But here we are, witnesses to the power of patient, persistent faithfulness’.Footnote ⁶

Given that the proceedings of the Board of Nominators are sealed for thirty years from the installation of the elected archbishop, and board members were required to sign a commitment to confidentiality, we can only surmise what the board’s decisions and motivations might have been. From the board’s official reportFootnote ⁷ and the outcome of their deliberations, however, it seems safe to assume that the church-planting passion infected the majority of the board members. That Thorpe was demonstrably the board’s preferred candidate is obvious from the other candidates it presented.

The other three candidates, although all Evangelicals, were no match for Thorpe, principally because Thorpe was the only bishop presented to the electoral Synod. Melbourne Diocese has not elected a non-episcopal candidate since Frederick Head, sub-dean of Liverpool Cathedral in the United Kingdom, became archbishop in 1929. The other contenders were all Melbourne clergy: two Melbourne vicars – Archdeacon Dr Tim Johnson, Vicar of Diamond Creek, and Archdeacon Megan Curlis-Gibson, Vicar of Deep Creek – and Dr Wei-Han Kuan, Executive Director of CMS Victoria. While all were acceptable candidates, none came with a significantly high level of ministry experience to compete with a candidate in episcopal orders. Archdeacon Curlis-Gibson, as the first woman candidate for Melbourne Diocese, no doubt attracted significant initial votes from keen supporters of women’s ministry so that she gained the second largest vote, but her vote was nowhere near enough to challenge Thorpe.Footnote ⁸

All four candidates were conservative Evangelicals, which I believe showed that the board this time, dominated by Evangelicals, was determined that only a conservative Evangelical candidate would be the next archbishop.Footnote ⁹ This was in stark contrast with the previous three boards. Despite the catholic majorities on those boards, Evangelical candidates were always included among the names they brought to Synod, as we have seen. It would seem safe to assume that potential candidates among non-Evangelical bishops and clergy in Australia were not given serious consideration.

There are, however, conservative Evangelical bishops in Australia, so many Synod members were surprised that Thorpe was the only episcopal candidate. In particular, they were surprised that a Melbourne regional bishop, Dr Paul Barker, was not included.Footnote ¹⁰ Many had assumed his name would be on the list and, according to anecdotal evidence, he did also until close to the election. Like the four candidates, Dr Barker is conservative on same-sex relationships, the yardstick for Anglican conservatism at present, although it is believed he is less rigid in this area.

Had his name been included, the Evangelical vote might well have been evenly divided between him and Thorpe. Catholic Synod members, so far as their vote had any impact, would doubtless have preferred Barker, if only because of their suspicion of church-planting. Dr Barker might well have come close to Thorpe in the voting, or even possibly succeeded. It is hard then to avoid the conclusion that the choice of candidates was skilfully planned and contrived by the Evangelical majority on the board to ensure Thorpe’s election.

The Same-Sex Blessing Debate

All four candidates were conservative on the issue of same-sex relationships. In its report to Synod members, the Board of Nominators said that all candidates upheld ‘Christian marriage as outlined in the Book of Common Prayer: a union between one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others’Footnote ¹¹ – code for no same-sex marriage. It is also believed that all four had assured the board that they saw opposition to same-sex relationships as a ‘first order’ theological issue, that is, on a par with credal statements about matters such as the Incarnation and the Resurrection. It is this issue that is currently dividing parts of the Anglican Communion, and not least the Anglican Church of Australia. It is said that some conservative Australian bishops refuse to be present at Eucharists with those who support the blessing of same-sex marriages. The issue of same-sex blessings has become the ‘line in the sand’ for conservative Anglicans, overtaking the previous ‘line’, the ordination of women.

A liturgy for the blessing of persons in a civil marriage under Australian law, which, after the 2017 amendment of the Australian Commonwealth Marriage Act, included same-sex marriages, was approved by the rural Victorian Diocese of Wangaratta in 2019. In 2020, the Australian Church’s highest court, the Appellate Tribunal, ruled that the liturgy was not inconsistent with the Church’s Constitution, nor with its canon law. It was subsequently approved by the Diocese of Newcastle as well.Footnote ¹² A small number of same-sex wedding blessings are believed to have taken place quietly in other dioceses as well.

The Diocese of Sydney has led the opposition to same-sex blessings in Australia. Following the Tribunal ruling, Dr Michael Stead, an assistant bishop in the Diocese, was quoted as saying that the ruling ‘has put the Anglican Church of Australia on a trajectory towards disintegration’. He continued: ‘This decision has destroyed the rationale for a national church’.Footnote ¹³ Two years later, the recently-retired Archbishop of Sydney, Glenn Davies, became bishop of the newly-created Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) breakaway Diocese of the Southern Cross, described as a safe place for Anglicans who ‘can no longer sit under the authority of their bishop’ because of the same-sex blessing decision.Footnote ¹⁴ Three years later, however, the diocese has just seven parishes, six in Queensland and one in Western Australia, but none in the two dioceses that have approved the same-sex blessing liturgy.Footnote ¹⁵

That the four candidates in the Melbourne archbishop election all oppose same-sex marriage puts them squarely inside the conservative Evangelical position, as prosecuted by the Diocese of Sydney. Thorpe was also among opponents of blessings in the Church of England, one of a small group of bishops who dissented from a majority report of the House of Bishops in favour of blessings for same-sex couples.Footnote ¹⁶ He also published a document, which he co-authored, defending a conservative view of marriage, opposing same-sex blessings.Footnote ¹⁷

Progressive Melbourne

That Melbourne Synod would countenance only candidates from such a narrow spectrum indicates that the Synod and presumably most Melbourne Anglicans have retreated from the progressive Anglicanism it previously championed. The 1970s, in particular, when Melbourne was led by its last English episcopal import, Frank Woods, was a time when Melbourne Diocese provided significant progressive leadership for the Australian Church.

Woods’ leadership in progressive areas might initially seem surprising. Woods, Archbishop of Melbourne from 1957 to 1977 and Primate of the Anglican Church of Australia from 1971 to 1977, came from an upper-class Church of England establishment family. Both his father and elder brother were bishops. He was a suffragan (assistant) bishop in the Diocese of Manchester when Melbourne’s Board of Electors chose him in 1957. He had been educated at Marlborough College, one of England’s leading public schools, and at Trinity College, Cambridge. He had what has been described as a ‘patrician demeanour’.Footnote ¹⁸

With that demeanour and background, and at that time, it might have been assumed that his episcopate would have been characterized by establishment formality and conservatism. The reality, however, was the exact opposite. During the Woods era, change – at times rapid change – was the hallmark, both in the life of the church and in its contribution to the community. By the time Archbishop Woods retired, Melbourne Diocese had become the progressive powerhouse of the Anglican Church of Australia.

In 1971, Melbourne Synod called for the decriminalization of homosexuality, well in advance of the wider community. The change did not occur in Victorian law until 1980. Following the recommendations of its Social Questions Committee, the Synod recommended that homosexual acts between consenting males aged eighteen and over in private should not be criminal.Footnote ¹⁹ Although the resolution was passed by an overwhelming majority, the decision provoked controversy. The Age newspaper reported that it ‘drew the wrath’ of a senior layman, the diocesan advocate, retired Supreme Court judge Sir Reginald Sholl.Footnote ²⁰ The Victorian Attorney-General, George Reid, was loud in his opposition, declaring that any lessening of penalties or changes would be an encouragement to acts of homosexuality. In his opinion, ‘this is a sign of degeneracy in any community’.Footnote ²¹

Melbourne Synod’s decision, while similar to that taken in some other Australian dioceses,Footnote ²² was in direct contrast with the position taken by Sydney Diocesan Synod. In 1973, Sydney Synod supported its Ethics and Social Questions Committee’s ‘Report on Homosexuality’ in upholding continuing criminal prosecution of homosexual acts. While it did recommend some modest penal reforms, such as that imprisonment be a last resort only, the report said that the church ‘cannot admit to fellowship those who practise their homosexuality and who make no effort at continence’.Footnote ²³

At the same time, Melbourne Synod was also seeking a more lenient approach to divorce and remarriage. In the 1971 Synod, it noted the ‘pastoral problems’ arising from the refusal to remarry divorced persons in church. It called for a committee to assist the archbishop in ‘the exercise of his dispensing power in appropriate cases’.Footnote ²⁴ The following year, the Synod went further, expressing its belief that ‘a [General Synod] canon permitting the remarriage of some divorced persons should be passed without undue delay’.Footnote ²⁵

In 1973, a provisional General Synod canon was awaiting final endorsement. Given that there was no guarantee that the canon would ever come into law – which in the end that particular canon did notFootnote ²⁶ – Archbishop Woods effectively took the matter into his own hands. At the time, given that he was the Primate, it was extraordinary for him to take such a stance. No doubt bolstered by his Synod’s concern over the previous two years, he told the 1973 October Melbourne Synod that he was already permitting Melbourne clergy to remarry divorced persons in church.

He explained that he had made his decision for pastoral reasons. He and the diocese’s regional bishops had decided that ‘the pastoral situation pressed upon us so strongly that we could not wait for this indefinite number of years’ until it became law. He told the Synod: ‘Could it really be true that in this one matter of marriage there could be no forgiveness, no second new start?’. His approach was truly pastoral. He said that under his regulation ‘there is no intention that the divorce proceedings should be raked over, or that a judgement should be passed on them’. The parish priest had the right to ask some questions of the persons involved, but the ‘basic consideration is the future and an approach to the new relationship in faith’.Footnote ²⁷ By contrast, the Diocese of Sydney still holds a strict line on the remarriage of divorced persons, allowing it only for the ‘innocent’ partner of a marriage that has broken down because of adultery, or where a Christian partner has been ‘abandoned’ by a non-believer spouse.Footnote ²⁸

The progressive moves by Melbourne continued in 1976, when Synod called for the ordination of women. The simple motion stated: ‘This Synod considers that there are no fundamental objections to the Ordination of Women to the Priesthood, and urges the Australian Church through the General Synod to take whatever steps are necessary to authorise the admission of women to the ordained ministry’.Footnote ²⁹ The Age newspaper reported that it was the first diocese in Australia to make such a move. And it was passed speedily on the voices after only two hours of debate.Footnote ³⁰ Considering the long and contentious debate on the issue that would convulse the national church until women priests were finally approved in 1992, it was remarkably straightforward. Although the motion spoke of women priests only, it was clear that the ordination of women to all three Holy Orders was intended. The mover, the Reverend Dr John Gaden, told the Synod that ‘it was essential that women be admitted as deacons, priests and bishops’.Footnote ³¹

The Melbourne resolution did not come out of the blue. The previous year, the Synod had received a report from a commission on the ministry of women. The commission’s report said there were no conclusive theological reasons why women should not be priests. Further, they called on the Synod to make a similar statement and urge action at the national level.Footnote ³²

Work was already proceeding at the national level. The General Synod Doctrine Commission had brought a preliminary report in favour of women in all three orders to the 1973 meeting of General Synod. In 1977, the Commission’s full report, finding that theological objections did not constitute a barrier to the ordination of women, found significant support at the General Synod meeting.Footnote ³³ The 1976 Melbourne resolution would no doubt have helped that outcome.

In the 1970s, opposition to women clergy in Melbourne came from conservative Anglo-Catholics, not Evangelicals. Melbourne Evangelical leaders were very much part of the push for women at the time, in direct contrast to the opposition from Sydney Evangelicals. The 1976 Melbourne resolution was seconded by the Reverend David Boan, the vicar of one of Melbourne’s Evangelical strongholds, St Jude’s, Carlton. In his Synod speech, he said that Melbourne had come to its position after carefully researching the Scriptures under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. It was Melbourne’s responsibility to keep the church alive to the question, he said, given it had done more work in the area than any other diocese.Footnote ³⁴ A significant Melbourne Evangelical leader, Dr Leon Morris, principal of Ridley College, Melbourne’s Evangelical theological college, played an important part in the General Synod Doctrine Commission’s support for women clergy. Bishop Keith Rayner, who was a member of the Commission, said Morris was ‘the pre-eminent Evangelical New Testament scholar in Australia’ at the time.Footnote ³⁵ Melbourne’s Evangelicals in those days, and up until the last couple of decades, were progressive and liberal-minded, and did not hesitate to challenge the hard-line position of Sydney Evangelicalism.

At first glance, it would seem that ‘progressive Melbourne’ has prevailed where women clergy are concerned. Today women are ordained priest in all but three of Australia’s 23 dioceses – Sydney and its two small rural satellite dioceses, North-West Australia and Armidale, where women can be deacons only.Footnote ³⁶ Women clergy in all three orders are widely accepted across the rest of the national church, with one woman, Kay Goldsworthy, the archbishop of a metropolitan diocese, Perth. Across the country, at the time of writing, there are nine active women bishops across six dioceses, with a further three providing ministry in retirement. Women priests constitute about one-third of the total number of priests in Melbourne, with women comprising three of the five active bishops. As the Diocese awaited the installation of Thorpe, one of the women, Bishop Genieve Blackwell, was the diocesan administrator.

Nevertheless, although a Melbourne woman vicar was a candidate in the archbishop election, and Evangelical clergy are now in the ascendancy in the diocese, most women vicars in Melbourne are not Evangelicals, but rather from the catholic Anglican or broad church streams. Evangelical women clergy are usually employed as curates or assistant clergy, or placed in school or other allied ministries. In some parishes, according to anecdotal evidence, women can preach only to congregations of women and children. Clearly there has been a hardening of attitudes, a lessening of the overwhelming support Melbourne Synod gave to the ordination of women from the 1970s to the first decade of the twenty-first century.Footnote ³⁷ Although the four election candidates all assured the Board of Nominators that they supported women in the ordained ministryFootnote ³⁸ – given Melbourne’s history it would surely have been difficult for a candidate opposed to ordained women to be elected – the reality is that Melbourne Diocese is no longer as passionately supportive of women’s ordination as it had been. I am not confident that the same consistently high level of support Melbourne Synod offered from 1976 to 2007 would prevail today.

Why and How Has Melbourne Changed?

This question has not had the level of research it deserves, given its impact not only on Melbourne but on the national church, as we shall see. Nor is there space here to pursue it to any significant level. All that is possible to provide here is a general overview drawn from the limited research available, together with my own close participation in the polity of the Diocese of Melbourne for more than forty years.

In 1997, the year of the 150^th anniversary of the founding of Melbourne Diocese, priest historian Colin Holden was able to write that ‘Melbourne has continued to maintain an evangelical tradition that is distinctive’ and that, at least on the surface, ‘enjoyed a reputation for tolerance and acceptance of diversity’.Footnote ³⁹ He continued:

This, he said, was particularly notable in theological education, where ‘Ridley College and its staff had more in common with Anglican evangelicals in England’ than Sydney Evangelicals.Footnote ⁴⁰

That was still largely the situation at the time of the 2006 election of Archbishop Philip Freier, who came from the catholic Anglican tradition. An even balance between Evangelicals and catholic Anglicans was still evident then. But the seeds of significant change had already been sown; I believe they were sown at Ridley College from early this century, when the Reverend Dr Peter Adam became principal from 2002 to 2012. If there is one place and one person largely responsible for the change in Melbourne, it is, in my view, Ridley College and Peter Adam.Footnote ⁴¹

When Leon Morris was principal of Ridley College from 1964 to 1979, the college played a significant role in progressive Melbourne, given his leadership in the cause to have women ordained. As we have seen, he was a prominent voice for women in the General Synod Doctrine Commission when it produced its key statement in favour of women’s ordination. Although there was opposition to women clergy from some male students in those years,Footnote ⁴² it was generally the seedbed for Melbourne’s supportive stance. Most of Melbourne’s first women clergy, and its first woman bishop, were trained there.

That changed dramatically within the decade of Adam’s tenure at Ridley. By 2010, a growing conservativism about women clergy at Ridley and in the diocese generally had attracted media attention.Footnote ⁴³ Women seeking ordination were being discouraged and even intimidated, as the doctrine of complementarianism was taking hold. According to that teaching, women are of equal value to men, but their role in the church and in the family is complementary to men’s, with church and family leadership belonging only to men. Women theological students and curates spoke out about their concern, while some male clergy defended complementarianism. Melbourne priest and scholar Dr Kevin Giles – an Evangelical strongly in favour of women clergy – was quoted as blaming the complementarian push on the influence of Sydney diocese and the Sydney-aligned Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students (AFES), influential in universities around the nation.Footnote ⁴⁴

Adam, described in the media as being a complementarian, conceded that there was some tension among Ridley students, describing the issue as ‘very delicate’. He agreed that there were then ‘political undercurrents’ in the diocese about it. ‘For the broader welfare of the church, I think it’s better not to take sides in a way that precludes others or denies them their rights to participate in the diocese,’ he was quoted as saying.Footnote ⁴⁵ For a theological college in a diocese that had already ‘taken sides’, and by overwhelming majorities passed legislation affirming women as priests and bishops, this was an extraordinary position.

The controversy, however, raised enough concern for the college to produce a policy statement in 2010 on gender and ministry, affirming that Ridley trained both women and men for ordination in the Anglican Church. The statement nevertheless gives equal weight to the complementarian position, allowing ‘a variety of opinions on how gender impacts the ordering of marriage, family, church life, and society’.Footnote ⁴⁶ Anecdotal evidence is that, in recent years, the situation at Ridley for women has stabilized from the 2010 controversy, largely through the efforts of female staff members.

The conservative influence on Ridley and on Melbourne generally in the first decade of this century came from a number of factors, as well as Adam, including from Sydney Diocese. Sydney’s influence was in that time much more powerful than it had been previously because of the ascendancy of Peter Jensen, Archbishop of Sydney from 2001 to 2013 – overlapping the years his friend Peter Adam was principal of Ridley College. Jensen’s tenure strengthened the conservatism of Sydney Diocese, and also inaugurated huge changes both for the Anglican Church of Australia and the worldwide Anglican Communion.Footnote ⁴⁷ In summary, he promoted a much more aggressive line on questions of gender and sexuality, and on reformed, Calvinistic theology generally; he spearheaded a determined virtual takeover of the national church; and was instrumental in the formation of GAFCON in 2008, with its insistence on opposition to same-sex relationships as the new standard for what has been misleadingly labelled ‘orthodox theology’.

At the same time, both Sydney and Melbourne came under the influence of an aggressive brand of ‘Reformed Theology’ developing in North American Protestantism and magnified by the reach of the internet and social media. ‘Reformed Theology’ is based on the conservative Protestantism of sixteenth-century reformers such as Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin,Footnote ⁴⁸ different to the more generous theology underpinning Anglicanism. From the early 2000s, Reformed Theology particularly impacted young men in what has been termed the ‘Young, restless and reformed’ phenomenon. A neo-Calvinist renewal movement, ‘its leaders touted countercultural ideas such as complementarianism — the belief that, while the sexes are equal, God put men in charge of the church and the home’.Footnote ⁴⁹ Reformed Theology’s attraction to restless young men came at the very time women’s leadership in church and society had grown so dramatically following the second wave feminism of the 1960s through to the 1980s; it was the religious response of men uncomfortable with this new reality.

Reformed Theology was aggressively promoted by a number of North American Protestant pastors. One of the key people, Mark Driscoll, then pastor of the Mars Hill Church, Seattle, visited Australia a number of times, including in 2008 when he preached at both Moore College, Sydney’s theological college, and to hundreds of Sydney Evangelical men at Sydney’s St Andrew’s Cathedral. A Sydney clergyman has recalled that Driscoll ‘spoke with the confidence and self-assuredness of a prophet, and we eagerly treated him like one too’.Footnote ⁵⁰ Although Driscoll’s star had waned by 2014 when he had to resign from Mars Hill Church under the weight of multiple accusations of abusive behaviour, plagiarism, and creating a toxic culture at the church, his teaching continues.Footnote ⁵¹

Driscoll was a co-founder of The Gospel Coalition, a US-based ‘fellowship of evangelical churches in the Reformed tradition’, whose ‘confessional statement’ proclaims the headship of men and submission of women in marriage, the leadership of men in the church, and heterosexual marriage only.Footnote ⁵² The Coalition has an Australian offshoot, led by a council of fifteen, all men, all from conservative Evangelical churches.Footnote ⁵³ The Coalition is influential in Melbourne Diocese, as at least one Melbourne cleric, the Reverend Stephanie Judd, senior associate minister at City on a Hill Melbourne, notes her involvement as a writer for the Gospel Coalition.Footnote ⁵⁴

It is not surprising that Reformed Theology found a ready home among Sydney Evangelicals. The headship of men and the submission of women was already a central doctrine for them, and had been consistently used to oppose the ordination of women from the 1970s.Footnote ⁵⁵ It is surprising, however, that this theological phenomenon was able to take hold in Melbourne, given its history. When it arose in the early 2000s, women had been priests in Melbourne for almost a decade and by 2008, it would have its first woman bishop. I submit it took hold because of the changes in the ethos of Ridley College under the leadership of Peter Adam, a priest who has long been a hero and guru to Melbourne Evangelicals. It is interesting to note that Ridley College has, beyond Adam’s leadership, continued to place itself firmly in the Reformed Theology camp. On its website, it states that the ‘theology of the College is shaped by the Reformed Anglican Theology’.Footnote ⁵⁶ The college also endorses the conservative GAFCON Jerusalem Declaration of 2008.Footnote ⁵⁷ This is significantly different to the more generous Evangelical ethos of earlier years, particularly under the leadership of Leon Morris.

These changes occurred under the radar for catholic Anglicans in Melbourne, largely unaware because Melbourne seemed secure on its old progressive track with so many women clergy serving in its parishes, and a catholic Anglican archbishop elected in 2006. It began to catch their attention in 2010, as we have seen, though it took until 2019 for alarm bells to start ringing seriously.

That year, Melbourne Synod displayed its strong conservative Evangelical leaning by passing two resolutions in the face of opposition from catholic Anglicans. One resolution ‘expressed sorrow’ that the Diocese of Wangaratta had authorized a liturgy for the blessing of civil marriages ‘that could be used to bless persons in same-sex relationships’.Footnote ⁵⁸ Although the wording of the motion was framed as expressing sorrow rather than condemnation, it was clear that it expressed strong opposition to same-sex relationships.

The same Synod also passed a resolution welcoming a separate – some would say schismatic – Anglican church in New Zealand. The resolution assured the Church of Confessing Anglicans Aotearoa/New Zealand of Melbourne Synod’s ‘love and prayers’. The new church was created by GAFCON in response to the decision to allow the blessing of same-sex marriages by the Anglican Church of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia.Footnote ⁵⁹ This second resolution, supporting the creation of a breakaway church, was arguably the more serious of the two, although the basis of both resolutions was opposition to same-sex relationships.

The writing was now clearly on the wall for Melbourne Diocese. Opposition to same-sex marriage, even limited to blessings, was now the policy of the Synod. Melbourne was now in lockstep with Sydney Diocese and other conservative Anglicans in Australia. Progressive Anglicanism, and particularly support for people in same-sex partnerships, was now a minority position.

Catholic Anglicans in Melbourne Diocese were shocked. They were not overly concerned that the next archbishop would almost certainly be an Evangelical, but hoped they would at least continue the quiet acceptance of clergy in ongoing same-sex partnerships, of whom there are a small number in Melbourne. They are yet to see whether this will be the case with Thorpe, whose ultra-conservatism in terms of same-sex issues in the Church of England makes him very much a central Evangelical in the new iteration of Melbourne Diocese. He has confirmed that position in a media interview since his election. The church must welcome people in same-sex relationships, he is quoted as saying, but the Scriptures are clear that marriage is between a man and a woman, and that cannot be set aside.Footnote ⁶⁰ His comment that the issue is ‘such a mess’ and a ‘distraction from the message of the church’ was no doubt hurtful for people with same-sex attraction.Footnote ⁶¹

Archbishop Ric Thorpe and the Australian Church

As the new Archbishop of Melbourne, Thorpe’s addition to the House of Bishops in the Anglican Church of Australia will entrench the national church’s growing conservatism. This was the assessment of John Sandeman, a conservative Sydney religious media commentator who, commenting on Thorpe’s election, wrote:

Sandeman was referring to the vote at the 2022 General Synod on a formal statement brought by the Diocese of Sydney, declaring that both same-sex marriage and same-sex marriage blessings were contrary ‘to the teaching of Christ and the faith, ritual, ceremonial and/or discipline of this Church’.Footnote ⁶³ The vote failed in the House of Bishops (10–12), with two bishops abstaining, but passed comfortably in the Houses of Clergy (70–39) and Laity (63–47).Footnote ⁶⁴ Thorpe would no doubt make a difference to any similar vote in the next General Synod meeting, to be held in 2026. His ex officio presence on the General Synod Standing Committee will also strengthen the conservative position there.

Although Sandeman says the General Synod houses of clergy and laity were progressive before 2022, that is not correct. The trajectory had been moving in a conservative Evangelical direction for almost a decade by then.Footnote ⁶⁵ The numbers of clergy and laity at the 2014 General Synod revealed a dramatic swing to conservative Evangelicalism. Of the 113 clergy at the 2014 General Synod, at least twenty-one clergy from dioceses other than Sydney were either from Sydney originally or had close connections or sympathies with that diocese. They had either trained at Sydney’s Moore Theological College or been missionaries with the Evangelical Church Missionary Society. So with the thirty-three Sydney clergy, close to half the clergy representatives at General Synod that year were Evangelical conservatives.Footnote ⁶⁶

That was in marked contrast to the situation at earlier General Synods. From the first General Synod meeting in 1962, the numbers of clergy and lay representatives from Sydney Diocese and the second largest diocese, Melbourne, were close, with the difference between them no more than six, always in Sydney’s favour, until 1998. Since then, the numerical difference has climbed, so that by 2014, Sydney Diocese’s representation had thirty-four more clergy and laity than Melbourne’s.Footnote ⁶⁷ In 2022, Melbourne’s clergy and lay representation, at 36, was exactly half that of Sydney, at 72. More significantly, eleven of the eighteen Melbourne clergy were Evangelicals, as were ten of the eighteen lay representatives. As conservative Evangelicalism had been on the rise in Melbourne since the beginning of this century, it is not surprising to see the changed dynamics in its representation.

The change to the huge increase in the numbers of Sydney’s representatives in comparison not only with Melbourne but also other dioceses has not been by accident. Two main factors have combined to bring this about. Anglo-Catholic and moderate dioceses are waning for a number of reasons, principally rural decline affecting regional dioceses, and failure to produce sufficient numbers of clergy over several decades. The conservatives, powered by Sydney Diocese, have taken advantage of this situation, infiltrating several dioceses by providing their style of clergy to fill the gaps. As a result, dioceses that were once firmly ‘catholic’ or ‘liberal’ are now sending Sydney-style conservative clergy representatives to General Synod. And the exponential growth in Sydney’s numbers has come about because of a loophole in the national church’s constitution.

The number of representatives a diocese is authorized to send to General Synod is calculated on the number of its active licensed clergy.Footnote ⁶⁸ The only constitutional brake on a diocese having ever-increasing numbers of General Synod representatives by ordaining more clergy is that the assessments each diocese must pay to General Synod – both the statutory assessment and the ‘special’ assessment – are based on the number of its clergy in active ministry.

The special assessment is not mandated by the church’s constitution, and so technically is a ‘voluntary’ contribution. It covers a range of expenses not foreseen when the constitution was agreed in 1961. Sydney Diocese ceased paying the special assessment in 1993, in response to the 1992 General Synod legislation for women priests, which that diocese had fiercely opposed.Footnote ⁶⁹ This means that any increase in the statutory assessment Sydney Diocese has to pay because of its increased number of representatives is offset by the savings made on the unpaid special assessment.

Gradually but steadily since the late 1990s, the number of Sydney’s representatives has increased and particularly from 2008, when it introduced a policy of ordaining a huge contingent of permanent deacons. These deacons in the main continued in their previous roles as parish youth workers and the like following ordination, thus increasing the number of stipended clergy in the diocese without increasing payroll obligations and inflating the number of the diocese’s General Synod representatives.Footnote ⁷⁰

So in the decade before Thorpe’s election to Melbourne, the Anglican Church of Australia was steadily becoming a conservative Evangelical stronghold. The outcome of the 2022 General Synod meeting solidified that position in its Standing Committee, and most of its Commissions and other bodies.Footnote ⁷¹ Only the House of Bishops has until now retained an even balance between conservative Evangelicals and others, as was shown in the close 2022 vote. Thorpe’s entry to the House of Bishops will tip the balance in favour of conservative Evangelicals, and thus complete the conservative takeover of the Anglican Church of Australia.