CLOSE to a year ago, the Rev Frank Logue, pastor at the King of Peace Episcopal Church, South Georgia, offered up this prayer on his website, Irenic Thoughts:

I pray that Ambrose and the parishioners at St Mary and St Michael Church will be able to work past the current issues to get to the part where they are transforming the lives of people in their neighborhood to the glory of God.

Fast forward to today, and we learn that the Ambrose in question – the Rev Dr Tom Ambrose, 61 – benefited not one jot from this, or any other prayer.

On the contrary, he wound up being sacked for:

Arrogant, aggressive, rude, bullying, high-handed, disorganised and at times petty behaviour.

Trouble, according to the Daily Mail, began at the church in Trumpington, Cambridge, when Ambrose arrived in the parish eight years ago. He wanted to modernise the church – a place of worship since the 13th century - to make it more inclusive. His plans included the installation of toilets.

A supporter of the vicar, local businessman John de Bruyne said:

Parish meetings became heated over where the loos should go. Never have I witnessed such vitriolic abuse and shouting from the old guard directed at their new vicar.

At the time, Ambrose, married with two children, declared:

This is not doing the Church of England any good - to see Christians behaving like this. I wasn’t doing anything particularly radical, I haven’t tried to overturn any traditions but I made a few changes which I believed would improve the parish and make it more inclusive.

Today, the Guardian reported that the Bishop of Ely had decided to remove the Rev Tom Ambrose from his post after a rare ecclesiastical tribunal heard evidence of his bad behaviour.

During the five-day hearing, which had been sought by the parochial church council (PCC), the panel was told that a “pastoral breakdown” had occurred in Trumpington. It was alleged that Ambrose had spat at a churchwarden, inundated critical congregants with letters and emails and had five trees felled in the churchyard without consulting the PCC.

The vicar was also said to have upset older parishioners by replacing sermons with slide shows and using so much incense that some people felt sick.

Ambrose, on the other hand, claimed he and his wife had been victimised by a “gang of four” troublemakers on the PCC and had received death threats signed “the Archangel Michael”.

In the letter to the vicar and those who brought the tribunal, the bishop wrote:

I am astonished and dismayed that there are recorded two occasions on which it is said that Dr Ambrose spat at parishioners, allegations which were not challenged in cross-examination. These incidents may be seen as among the lowest points of what plainly became an increasingly unhappy relationship between Dr Ambrose and his parishioners, as charted in the report.

A diocesan spokesman said that despite being removed from his post, Ambrose remained a vicar.