Two members of the Scottish Episcopal Church have been recognised for their service to church and community as recipients of Maundy money.

Miss Anne Harper from Aboyne and Professor Gordon Graham from Edinburgh are named among the ten Scottish Maundy recipients who were honoured at a service held in Worcester Cathedral.

Miss Harper, pictured right, is Vestry Secretary at St Thomas Episcopal Church in Aboyne, and is a member of the Finance & Property Committee in the Diocese of Aberdeen & Orkney. Until recently, she was also a member of the Diocese’s Standing Committee. At Provincial level, she has just joined the Inter-Church Relations Committee.

In addition, Miss Harper is a member of the Aberdeen University Development Trust, and has been a Lay Member of the Schools Inspectorate and Chair of the Gordon Cook Foundation, an Aberdeen-based education charity operating throughout the UK.

Prof Graham, pictured right, is a non-stipendiary priest in the Diocese of Edinburgh, and has previously been Associate Priest at Christ Church Morningside and St Vincent’s Chapel Edinburgh. He is a founding Trustee of The Soko Fund, which promotes the education of women in Malawi and since 2018 has directed the Edinburgh Festival of the Sacred Arts. He is also Emeritus Professor of Philosophy and the Arts at Princeton Theological Seminary in the USA, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Maundy nominations are for people who have faithfully served the church and wider community in ways not previously recognised by a public honour.

King Charles was unable to attend the traditional Maundy Thursday service in Worcester because he has been receiving treatment for cancer, and instead Queen Camilla handed out Maundy money.

The King recorded a message that was played at the service, in which he praised those who “extend the hand of friendship, especially in a time of need”.

The message included a Bible reading and a call that as a nation “we need and benefit greatly from those who extend the hand of friendship to us, especially in a time of need.”

He described the 150 recipients of Maundy Money as “wonderful examples of such kindness; of going way beyond the call of duty and of giving so much of their lives to the service of others in their communities.”

The Maundy service, in which the monarch gives out gifts, is one of the oldest royal ceremonies, dating back at least as far as the 13th Century.

This year’s recipients received £5 coins with the image of a Tudor dragon, a 50p coin marking the The Royal National Lifeboat Institution’s 200th anniversary and specially minted silver Maundy coins.