The Very Reverend Professor Iain Torrance will preach a sermon on Relationships of Respect at St Bene't's Church at 11.45 on Tuesday, 19 April.
Dean of HM Chapel Royal in Scotland and Dean of the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle, Professor Torrance is Pro-Chancellor of the University of Aberdeen and was formerly Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.
Educated at the Universities of Edinburgh, St Andrews and Oxford (Oriel College), Iain Torrance entered ordained ministry in 1982, in the footsteps of his father, also sometime Moderator of the General Assembly. After Lectureships in Patristics and New Testament at the University of Birmingham, he moved to Aberdeen in 1993 and was subsequently appointed to a personal chair and then to the deanship of the Faculty of Arts and Divinity in 2001. A Chaplain to HM The Queen in Scotland from that year and formerly a chaplain in the Territorial Army, he served as Moderator of the General Assembly 2003-4 before moving to the United States as President and Professor of Patristics at the Princeton Theological Seminary. He retired from the seminary at the end of 2012 and since 2013 has held an Honorary Chair in Early Christian Doctrine and Ethics at the University of Edinburgh.
Iain Torrance's publications include Christology after Chalcedon (1988); The Cambridge Dictionary of Christian Theology (2011), edited with IA McFarland, DAS Fergusson and K Kilby, and The Correspondence of Severus and Sergius (2011). Professor Torrance co-edited The Scottish Journal of Theology 1982-2015.
Commemoration of John Mere
John Mere, who died in 1558 was an Esquire Bedell and also Registrary of the University and a member of both King's and Corpus Christi Colleges.
He left property in the parish of St Bene't's, partly to pay for an annual sermon in his memory on particular subjects. Certain University Officers, including the Registrary and the two Bedells, receive (token) payments for attending, as do the Vicar and the Clerk of the Parish.
Flowers are placed on Mere's tombstone beforehand, and afterwards payments are also made to the inhabitants of the almshouses of St Anthony and St Eligius. The sermon is preached either by the Vice-Chancellor or a person nominated by the Vice-Chancellor, and is given on the first Tuesday of Full Easter Term.
The modern custom is for Corpus Christi College to suggest preachers for appointment, and the College has a strong links with St Bene't's, where it is Patron of the Living, appointing the Vicar and maintaining seats for the Master and Fellows. The Master offers refreshment to those attending the sermon.
All are welcome. Members of the University should wear their gowns.
Top picture credit: Martin Bond