New moderator installed as General Assembly of Church of Scotland begins

The Reverend Lorna Hood is the Kirk's new moderator

The new moderator of the Church of Scotland has officially taken up her post, as the Kirk's General Assembly gets under way.

The Reverend Lorna Hood described her appointment as an "enormous privilege and honour".

Mrs Hood will preside over the week-long gathering of ministers on the Mound in Edinburgh.

One of her first duties will be to chair a controversial debate on the issue of gay ministers on Monday.

Mrs Hood, 60, is originally from Kilmarnock, and began her church career as a probationer assistant at St Ninian's Corstorphine Church in Edinburgh where she was ordained in 1978.

The following year the minister went to Renfrew North Parish Church where she has served for the past 33 years.

Mrs Hood was also chaplain at Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley for more than two decades, where she was part of a team which pioneered a care plan for women who had suffered a miscarriage or the loss of a newborn.

She is the third woman to hold the title and follows in the footsteps of Dr Alison Elliot in 2004 and the Very Reverend Dr Sheilagh Kesting in 2007.

Mrs Hood succeeds the Right Reverend Albert Bogle in the post, which is held for one year.

Speaking at the assembly, Mrs Hood told delegates: "I hope and pray I will live up to the high calling of this office."

On Monday, Mrs Hood will be called upon to preside over one of the most controversial debates in the church's history.

Ministers will hear the findings of a report by a theological commission, appointed in 2011, to look at the issue of same-sex relationships and the ministry.

The Church of Scotland has said the report describes the breadth of theological opinion that exists but does not represent the considered view of the Kirk.

The report does not offer any recommendations.