Iain Torrance

Sir Iain Richard Torrance, (born 13 January 1949) is a retired Church of Scotland minister, theologian and academic.

He is Pro-Chancellor of the University of Aberdeen, Honorary Professor of Early Christian Doctrine and Ethics at the University of Edinburgh, President and Professor of Patristics Emeritus at Princeton Theological Seminary, and an Extra Chaplain to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in Scotland.

He was formerly Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Dean of the Chapel Royal in Scotland, and Dean of the Order of the Thistle.

He is married to Morag Ann (née MacHugh), whom he met while they were students at the University of St Andrews, and they have two children.

Torrance was born in Aberdeen, Scotland.

He is the younger son of Thomas Forsyth Torrance, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1976.

He was educated at the Edinburgh Academy and at Monkton Combe School in Bath, then graduated MA (University of Edinburgh), BD (University of St Andrews), DPhil (Oriel College, Oxford).

His doctoral thesis was entitled A translation of the letters between Severus of Antioch and Sergius the Grammarian, with a theological introduction, and was supervised by Sebastian Brock.

Following Oxford, Torrance was ordained on 23 January 1982 by the Church of Scotland's Presbytery of Shetland as minister at Northmavine Parish Church in the Shetland Islands.

Northmavine is the most northerly parish on the main island of the Shetland archipelago, and is famous for the stunning cliff scenery of Eshaness.

On 26 July 1982, he was commissioned in the Royal Army Chaplains' Department, British Army, as a Chaplain to the Forces 4th Class (equivalent in rank to captain).

Between 1982 and 1997, he served as a Territorial Army chaplain with the 2nd Battalion, 51st Highland Volunteers and then the Royal Army Medical Corps.

After serving for four years in Northmavine, in 1985 Torrance moved to The Queen's College, Birmingham, an ecumenical theological college (mainly Anglican and Methodist) with strong links to the University of Birmingham.

There, he taught New Testament studies.

He was promoted to Chaplain to the Forces 3rd Class (equivalent to major) on 26 July 1988.

In 1989 he moved to a lectureship in Patristics and New Testament at the University of Birmingham.

He was invited to become a member of the International Dialogue between The World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) and the Eastern Orthodox Church in 1992, becoming co-chair in 1995.

In 1993, he moved to the University of Aberdeen, subsequently being promoted to a personal chair and becoming Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Divinity in 2001.

He was awarded the Efficiency Decoration (Territorial) in 1995, in recognition of twelve years long service in the reserves.

From 1997 to 2000, he was a chaplain to the Army Cadet Force.

He resigned his British Army commission on 16 February 2000.

In 2001 he was appointed a Chaplain-in-Ordinary to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in Scotland.

Iain Torrance's tenure as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland (2003-2004) was marked by a nationally reported controversy following his public comments on homosexuality in which he stated that he was "utterly untroubled" by the ordination of gay clergy.

The context was the nomination of Canon Jeffrey John as Bishop of Reading.

Doctor Torrance thereby became the first leader to encourage gay ordination in the Church of Scotland's 500-year history, a stance that marked a major shift in the Church's view and which was met with fierce opposition.

Torrance subsequently used a Christmas sermon as a platform to challenge homophobia within his own church.

The Reverend David W. Lacy, one of Torrance's successors as Moderator, publicly opposed this stance, arguing that the appointment of openly gay ministers would rip the Church of Scotland apart.

When asked to comment on some public criticism by fellow ministers, Torrance said of his critics: "I am not convinced that their vision and my vision need collide in such a way that one must consume the other. There is room for both, and a lively Church needs both those who are zealous in upholding tradition and those who probe its boundaries."

His year in office also saw the first official call for the release of the Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, a Libyan national imprisoned for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, informally known as the Lockerbie bombing.

He served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 2004, continuing in that office until the appointment of Alison Elliot the following year.

In 2005 he represented the Church of Scotland and the WARC at the installation of Pope Benedict XVI.

In 2008, he represented the WARC at the Lambeth Conference.

Torrance appears as himself in Alexander McCall Smith’s Edinburgh novels, The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday (2008) and The Forgotten Affairs of Youth (2011).

In July 2013 The Queen appointed Torrance Dean of the Chapel Royal in Scotland, and in July 2014 she appointed him Dean of the Order of the Thistle.

The composer Paul Mealor dedicated to Torrance the anthem which he had been commissioned to write for the UK and Commonwealth Commemoration of World War One in Glasgow Cathedral on 4 August 2014.

He retired from these posts in July 2019.

In 2021 he was appointed by the Scottish Episcopal Church to lead an Independent Review into "difficulties" in the Diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney following a series of allegations regarding the Bishop, Anne Dyer.

Professor Torrance's report, which Dyer tried to have changed after completion, found that there was a culture of bullying and "systematic dysfunction in the diocese", and that there were previous similar problems in Dyer's time at Durham.

Professor Torrance stated that: "Without colluding in what I much fear is a repetition of the past, I cannot recommend the continuation of a tenure in which I fear that more people will be made to feel diminished and discouraged."

He recommended that Dyer be immediately sent on sabbatical and that she should step down from her position permanently.