When the General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church met last summer, how did it deal with three items on its agenda that involved how Aimee Byrd and Rachel Miller had been treated in some church circles? (The General Assembly is the broadest body in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.) A friend of mine recently asked if anyone had written a summary of the actions the assembly took regarding those items. I was not aware of such a summary, so I tried to help him by providing the following.

Introduction:

               A complaint, as the term is used in the constitution of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC), is not simply a gripe or objection, but rather, a written document “charging a judicatory with delinquency or error.” (Book of Discipline IX.1) A complaint is first brought to the body that the one complaining believes has erred, giving it the opportunity to make a satisfactory correction. If the complainant is not satisfied, the complaint may be appealed to the next higher judicatory.

               The Rev. Glenn D. Jerrell authored three complaints against the Presbytery of the Southeast (PSE), of which he is a member. All three dealt with actions, or failures to act, as the presbytery dealt with officers who had made sweeping, public attacks against several members of the OPC. When the presbytery denied his complaints, he appealed them to the 87^th General Assembly (GA), where they were numbered Complaints 7, 8, and 9 (because the Assembly did not meet in 2020 due to the pandemic, an unusually large number of complaints were before the body).