Following media enquiries in connection with a service held in St Mary’s at Epiphany, the Provost has issued this comment:
“Over the Christmas season, we invited local Muslim friends into St Mary’s Cathedral to join us for the Feast of the Epiphany – we often get similar invitations to join them for their own festivals. In the course of our celebrations of the birth of the Saviour, we listened with interest to the story that Muslims tell of the annunciation of Jesus in the Qur’an. Such readings have happened a number of times in the past in this and in other churches and have led to deepening friendships locally, to greater awareness of the things we hold in common and to dialogue about the ways in which we differ.
“I have commented in the past on such readings and those comments are still available online: http://thurible.net/2015/03/14/welcoming-muslims-into-church/”
UPDATE – 12 January 2017
St Mary’s Cathedral has received received a number of offensive messages. These have been reported to Police Scotland. We are grateful to Police Scotland for their support at this time.
UPDATE – 17 January 2017
The provost has written about this on his blog here:
http://thurible.net/2017/01/13/keeping-the-faith/
The sermon he preached about in connection with this can be read here:
http://thurible.net/2017/01/15/sermon-epiphanies-midst-storm/