page_title: List of ministers of Greyfriars Kirk
section_title: New Greyfriars
hierarchical_section_title: List of ministers of Greyfriars Kirk / New Greyfriars
caption_attribution_description: English: Robert Henry (February 18, 1718 – November 24, 1790)
context_page_description: The minister of Greyfriars Kirk is a position within the Church of Scotland's Presbytery of Edinburgh. The current minister of Greyfriars Kirk is Richard Frazer, who was admitted in 2003.
  Greyfriars originated in 1598, when Robert Rollock and Peter Hewat were appointed ministers of the South West Parish of Edinburgh, then meeting in the Upper Tolbooth portion of St Giles’. The charge of Greyfriars continued with two ministers until 1840, when St John's Church, Victoria Street, was erected and the last minister of the second charge, Thomas Guthrie became the first minister of the new church. New Greyfriars was erected in 1722 and occupied the western half of the kirk. It was a sole charge served by one minister. In 1929, the congregations of Old and New Greyfriars united under one minister. Both churches were burgh churches, meaning that the town council held the right to nominate the churches' ministers.
  Since the establishment of the South-West Parish in 1598, 75 ministers have served the congregation: 40 in Old Greyfriars, 30 in New Greyfriars, and five in the united charge.
context_section_description: After an explosion destroyed part of Greyfriars in 1718, the town council decided to rebuild the church to accommodate two congregations. The western half of the church was occupied by New Greyfriars, which opened on 31 December 1722. In its earliest days, the congregation was also known as Wester Greyfriars.
  Like Old Greyfriars, New Greyfriars was a burgh church and, prior to the abolition of patronage in the Church of Scotland in 1874, the town council held the right to nominated the minister. Unlike Old Greyfriars, the congregation was a sole charge served by one minister. The town council often appointed promising ministers to the sole charge of New Greyfriars on the understanding that they would be promoted to one of the city’s two-charge churches soon afterwards. For this reason, many ministers of New Greyfriars served relatively short incumbencies.
caption: Robert Henry (1768–1776)
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