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Introduction

The purpose of this section of the website is to offer carefully researched presentations on a variety of issues pertaining not only to St Peter's but also to the wider Australian Anglican experience.

Australian Anglicanism is far from monochrome. A paper on the distinguishing marks of Melbourne Anglicanism by Colin Holden includes some comparisons with the different courses taken by Melbourne and Sydney, and the historical reasons behind these differences.
Click here for Colin Holden's paper.

A related paper by John Davis was written in 2008 and published in The Encyclopedia of Religion in Australia, edited by James Jupp (Cambridge University Press, 2009). This article discusses the history of Anglicanism in Australia, and highlights some of the differences that led to difficulties for the Lambeth Conference in 2008.
Click here for the paper by John Davis.

A paper by Graham Willett, a historian of gay liberation in Australia whose major work on this subject is soon to be published by Allen and Unwin, examines the responses of Anglican synods in different dioceses over the issue of the decriminalisation of homosexuality, focussing particularly on the 1960s and 1970s. The responses of several dioceses where synods voted in favour of decriminalisation (eg Adelaide, Canberra-Goulburn, Melbourne) contrasts with Sydney's rejection. This highlights in a particular way the contrasting and different cultures of individual dioceses, and the responses of a number of participants in this debate also shows that Anglicanism in Australia has not simply been an agent of repression, but participated positively in the process of justice and fair dealing for gay people. We are grateful to Dr Willett for permission to include this paper, which will also be published in 2000 in a monograph on Anglicanism in Melbourne to be published by the History Department of Melbourne University.
Click here for Graham Willett's paper.

At a seemingly more parochial level, we also include a paper on the relationship between the Melbourne Diocesan Grammar School, a school which was located at St Peter's from 1849 to 1854, and the present Melbourne Grammar School. If, as some would argue, the two schools have an organic relationship, Melbourne Grammar School would then constitute Melbourne's oldest school that continues to function. Private correspondence by Bishop Charles Perry and the first head of the Diocesan Grammar School in 1852, that was unavailable to earlier researchers, is quoted at length in support of the link between these two schools.
Click here for the Melbourne Grammar paper.


A number of supplementary papers, sermons, reviews and comments are also available on the St Peter's web site.



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