{"id":264469,"date":"2023-02-01T08:36:38","date_gmt":"2023-02-01T08:36:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=264469"},"modified":"2023-02-03T08:31:40","modified_gmt":"2023-02-03T08:31:40","slug":"church-of-england-vicar-found-guilty-of-anti-semitic-activity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=264469","title":{"rendered":"Church of England vicar found guilty of &#8216;anti-Semitic activity&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>For sharing an article on the &#8220;conspiracy theory&#8221; that claimed Israel was responsible for 9\/11 terror attacks he is barred from ministry for 12 years<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Rev Dr Stephen Sizer was found guilty of 4 acts of anti-Semitism\u00a0by a tribunal<\/li>\n<li>These included sharing an anti-Semitic\u00a0article entitled 9\/11: Israel did it<\/li>\n<li>He&#8217;s been banned by the Church of England until 2030 for the 2018 complaint<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>John James \u2013 Daily Mail Jan 31, 2023<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p>A Church of England vicar who peddled an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that Israel was behind the 9\/11 terror attacks has been barred from ministry for 12 years following a disciplinary hearing.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_264471\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Rev-Sizer.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-264471\" class=\"wp-image-264471\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Rev-Sizer.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"498\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-264471\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rev Stephen Sizer<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The Board of Deputies of British Jews made 11 allegations against the Rev Dr Stephen Sizer which claimed his conduct in incidents between 2005-2018 was &#8216;unbecoming or inappropriate&#8217; in that he &#8216;provoked and offended&#8217; the Jewish community and\/or engaged in anti-Semitic activity.<\/p>\n<p>The tribunal found he engaged in anti-Semitic conduct with respect to suggesting Israel&#8217;s responsibility for 9\/11.<\/p>\n<p>In total, the tribunal found Dr Sizer&#8217;s conduct was &#8216;unbecoming to the office and work of a clerk in Holy Order&#8217; in that he provoked and offended the Jewish community and\/or engaged in antisemitic activity with respect to four out of 11 allegations.<\/p>\n<p>Dr Sizer, former vicar of Christ Church in Virginia Water, Surrey, admitted the &#8216;factual basis&#8217; of all allegations against him but disputed that his conduct was unbecoming or inappropriate and denied provoking and offending the Jewish Community and\/or engaging in anti-Semitic activity.<\/p>\n<p>He was given a &#8216;penalty judgment&#8217;\u00a0under the Clergy Disciplinary Measure 2003.<\/p>\n<p>This will prohibit the retired vicar from licensed ministry in the Church of England for 12 years &#8211; which will take into account time served since the\u00a0Board of Deputies of British Jews 2018 complaint.<\/p>\n<p>This means he will be free to practise again in 2030.<\/p>\n<p>Throughout the process, the former vicar of Christ Church in Virginia Water, Surrey denied anti-Semitic behaviour but admitted the factual basis of all 11 claims.<\/p>\n<p>In a rare move, Dr Sizer chose to hold his tribunal in public in a bid to clear his name, arguing that his actions were political and aimed at the state of Israel, not Jewish people.<\/p>\n<p>However, the tribunal eventually found that Dr Sizer&#8217;s conduct had been &#8216;unbecoming to the office and work of a clerk in Holy Order&#8217; in that he provoked and offended the Jewish community and\/or engaged in anti-Semitic activity with respect to four out of 11 allegations.<\/p>\n<p>In 2006, Dr Sizer met &#8216;senior Hezbollah commander&#8217; Sheikh Nabil Kaouk in a secret location near Tyre, Lebanon &#8211; however he claimed he did not instigate the meeting.<\/p>\n<p>Regardless, the tribunal decided it was &#8216;unacceptable&#8217; for an ordained minister to make an &#8216;unauthorised visit&#8217; to a senior commander of the military wing of Hezbollah other than in an official capacity and found Dr Sizer&#8217;s conduct unbecoming and inappropriate in that he provoked and offended the Jewish community.<\/p>\n<p>It also concluded, however, that he was not engaging in anti-Semitic activity.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-11695693\/Church-England-vicar-guilty-anti-Semitic-activity.html\">Continues \u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a measure of how far the Church of England is controlled, a tribunal barred Rev Dr Stephen Sizer from ministry after he posted an article claiming Israel was behind 9\/11 &#8212; following a complaint from the Jewish Board of Deputies<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":139671,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[37,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-264469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies","category-September_11"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=264469"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":264486,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264469\/revisions\/264486"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/139671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=264469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=264469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=264469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}