By Mike Donachie

CLAIMS THAT a rarely-used bequest should be tapped into to save one of Perthshire’s most historic churches from sale have been dismissed as “a red herring” by the local minister.

Last month, the congregation of Pitlochry Church of Scotland voted to sell Moulin Kirk, which has been closed for 15 years, after accepting it was a significant drain on parish finances.

With a £20,000 repair bill already paid, the parish faced ongoing costs to retain a building which, despite protracted efforts to find a new community use, had an increasingly uncertain future.

Surveyors have been appointed as the first stage of the sale process, but a member of the congregation, who asked for her name to be withheld, contacted The Courier to insist the congregational board voted without being presented with the full facts.

She pointed out the latest church magazine gives details of the Margaret Steel Charitable Trust, the result of a bequest by a local teacher, which is managed by trustees.

With £53,000 available for the benefit of Moulin Kirk and Pitlochry West Church of Scotland—after less £2000 was spent in two years—the parishioner asked why the fund could not be used to maintain the empty church at Moulin for a few years longer.

She said, “Why didn’t they use the £53,000 sitting there that could have been used or should have been used for that purpose?

“If you don’t know the voting facts, then how are you going to be able to vote fairly?”

However, Pitlochry’s minister, the Rev Malcolm Ramsay, said a question of “Christian stewardship” should be asked,

He said, “I’m afraid the Margaret Steel Charitable Trust funds are a complete red herring.

“The funds stand at a little over £50,000, but the congregation’s own financial accounts, which are published every year in the church’s magazine The Torch, show that at the end of 2003 the congregation had funds of one kind or another of just over £95,000, though some of these funds are ear-marked for particular purposes.

“In other words even if the Margaret Steel Trust did not exist the congregation still has substantial financial reserves which all members are, or should be, well aware of as they are publicised on an annual basis.

“The issue is not whether funds exist which could be used. The issue is how those funds should be used.”

He pointed out the congregational board, the Kirk Session, a congregational meeting, and Dunkeld and Meigle Presbytery all voted in favour of the disposal of Moulin Kirk.

He continued, “In summary, the heart of the issue is not whether money exists, but how the money that does exist should be used.

“Christian stewardship requires that we use money well that has been entrusted to us by the faithfulness and generosity of generations that have gone before.

“At all four meetings...the overwhelming view has been that the repair and maintenance of a church building that has been standing empty and closed for worship for 15 years is not a good use of the congregation’s funds.”