accountability,archbishops,dioceses,finances,lutheran,middle of the road,mission,parish share,porvoo,poverty,save the parish,stipendiary,tradition,traditional,transparency,young people

Pekki Purppura

Since becoming a Churchwarden in 2023 and, more recently, a Deanery
Synod Representative in 2026, I have gained an increased insight into the
Church's structures and the challenges a small rural parish church faces.
I have come to believe that we need to instate far greater transparency
and accountability on the church’s administration at every level.

lam concerned about:

e The lack of transparency around Chutch finances. For example, of the annual £653 million
income from Queen Anne's Bounty, established to support parish finances, only £85 million
actually goes to parishes.

e The bloating of church bureaucracy. In the Diocese of Truro, 1 full-time equivalent diocesan
staff member is employed for every 1.48 parochial clergy. Nationally, it is 1 to 2.98. For
reference, the average for the rest of the charity sector is 1 to 8.

e Oversight Ministry, which has now reached the Diocese of Truro, with implications for
traditional pastoral care, particularly in a sparsely populated and rural area, such as Cornwall.

e The closure of churches. 423 churches were closed in 2010s, with 15,496 left standing. A study
by Church Action on Poverty showed that 40 per cent of closures fell in the 10 per cent most
deprived parishes in the country.

e Church volunteers being treated as cheap administrative replacements, used by dioceses to mask
clergy cuts. Between 2019 and 2024, the Diocese of Truro lost 23% of its stipendiary priests.
Grassroots lay leaders and congregations suffer from administrative exhaustion, excessive
regulation, and the routine assumption that we should simply be asked to do more.

e The ways in which Church institutions are increasingly becoming vehicles for ideologies
and narratives disconnected from, and unrelated to, the Christian faith.

e The deepening global division within the Anglican church, our role and responsibility in it, and
its implications.

The parish is at the heart of the Church of England. It informs every aspect of
our mission and our vision of ourselves. It is prized well beyond those who
attend church on a Sunday, and has been spoken of passionately by bishops and
archbishops. And yet, over many decades parishes have been starved of priests
and money, their assets are being used to make good the mistakes of others.
Matters have reached a critical point, and so I have chosen to stand as part of
the Save the Parish movement and to focus my energies on these issues. You
can read the full Save the Parish manifesto here: www.savetheparish.com

Parish Priest People

Restore Church 3. Adopt a Charter of Care 5. Adopt a ‘Churchgoers’

Commissioners’ funds to that values our clergy and Charter’ that honours the
their founding purpose: guards them from mental and volunteers who hold our
stipendiary parish ministry. physical exhaustion. parishes together.

Direct the parish share to 4. Renew rich theological 6. Reform the Mission and

mission and the cure of souls. resourcing for the theological Pastoral Measure.
education which is ordinand-
centred not budget-centred.

If you share my concerns, please support me with your first or a high-preference vote.

ABOUT ME
I was born in south-western Finland and baptised and confirmed in the Finnish Lutheran Church, which
has been in full communion with the Church of England since the Porvoo Common Statement of 1992.

As the son of a migrant worker, I spent part of my childhood in Norway
and Sweden. In adulthood, I have lived in China, Hong Kong, and
Scotland, before discovering the beauty of West Cornwall and settling here
with my wife in 2020. My background has taught me to place individual
experiences within their wider contexts, while also respecting the traditions
and particular character of local communities. My professional background
and interests span international business, psychology, and public policy. I
hope that the skills developed through my professional life—grasping the
essence of complex issues and working constructively with people who
hold diverse points of view—would be of value in the General Synod, as
we consider the major issues facing the Church and society today.

~ j
My wife and I attend Sancreed Parish Church, where we were married, because of the way its beautiful
traditions have been carefully and faithfully preserved by the elders of our small parish. Tucked away in
Sancreed, we have found both a deeply peaceful setting for worship and a quiet, deeply inspiring
example of Christian faithfulness—never pressed upon us, yet always present.

Hidden in places like Sancreed, there may be a wealth of quiet spiritual ¥
inheritance and Christian insight which, under the Church’s current
trajectory, risks being increasingly effaced beneath an avalanche of avant-
garde ideologies, slogans, initiatives for renewal, ‘vision and strategy’,
programmes of transformation, agendas, and policies. It is hardly a
surprise that many young people are less drawn to the Church, as they are
also suffocated and misled by such ideological cant and institutional
jargon in almost every other sphere of their lives.

The Church cannot afford to shape and impose its policies around imagined preferences of equally
imagined ‘groups’ whom it hopes to attract, at the expense of faithfully tending the living tradition it has
inherited and making it available to those who are genuinely drawn to it.

MY MISSION

These are some of the issues which will be important over the next five years. As for the others, I will
listen to the debates and to you. What I can offer is a strong voice: unafraid to speak up publicly and
committed to representing you diligently.

As decisions are taken that will shape how the Church of England engages with the remaining three-
quarters of the 21“ century, it is hugely important that the General Synod has people who are not afraid
to challenge, test, and (at times) contest proposals from the central church. My aim is to be one of those
representatives.

This is not a cause for one part of the church. It is shared by Evangelicals, Anglo-Catholics, the High
Church, the Middle of the Road, and anyone who values the system gifted to us in its wonderful
diversity of expressions. I will aim to work together with all those of goodwill, whatever their position
on all of the other matters which vex the church, to Save the Parish.

CONTACT
[email protected] 07895 862529 (mobile) 01736887228 (landline)