AFP/London
The head of St Paul’s Cathedral resigned yesterday due to criticism he faced over moves to evict protesters inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement from outside the London landmark.
Graeme Knowles: quits amid row
Graeme Knowles, the dean of the cathedral in London’s financial district, said his position had become “untenable” amid a row over the hundreds of demonstrators who forced the closure of the church last week.
“The past fortnight has been a testing time for the chapter and for me personally,” Knowles said in a statement read out by a church official to the media. “It has become increasingly clear to me that, as criticism of the cathedral has mounted in the press, media and in public opinion, my position as dean of St Paul’s was becoming untenable,” he added.
Knowles is the third churchman to resign over the row at the historic cathedral, which announced last week that it was taking legal action to remove more than 200 tents which sprung up in the churchyard two weeks ago.
“In order to give the opportunity for a fresh approach to the complex and vital questions facing St Paul’s, I have thought it best to stand down as dean, to allow new leadership to be exercised,” added Knowles.
“I do this with great sadness, but I now believe that I am no longer the right person to lead the chapter of this great cathedral.”
The dispute over the Occupy London Stock Exchange protesters at St Paul’s has plunged the Anglican church itself into crisis as it wrings its hands over how to handle the demonstrators while maintaining its principles.
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the leader of the world’s Anglicans, called Knowles’s resignation “very sad.”
“The announcement of the resignation of the dean of St Paul’s, coming as it does in the wake of the resignation of canon Giles Fraser last week, is very sad news,” Williams said in a statement. Fraser, the canon chancellor of the cathedral, resigned last week saying he disagreed with cathedral policy and feared that violence would be used against the protesters.
Williams said: “The events of the last couple of weeks have shown very clearly how decisions made in good faith by good people under unusual pressure can have utterly unforeseen and unwelcome consequences, and the clergy of St Paul’s deserve our understanding in these circumstances.” The Church of England leader said the “urgent larger issues raised by the protesters at St Paul’s remain very much on the table and we need - as a Church and as society as a whole - to work to make sure that they are properly addressed.”