before Church officials tomorrow night.

The Methodist Synod of Bermuda will receive a report written by American Professor John Cartwright on the issues affecting local church unity.

Professor Cartwright, an ordained black minister in the Methodist Church, is The Martin Luther King Jr. professor of social ethics at Boston University.

Professor Cartwright paid a three-week visit to Bermuda in May to investigate the causes of discontent within the local Methodist Church.

He was issued the invitation after the Synod unanimously passed a motion, last year, requesting that an expert be commissioned to figure out the reasons for Church disunity and how it might be repaired.

After presenting his findings to the closed meeting of the Synod, Professor Cartwright will present the report Monday at a meeting for all Methodists to be held at 7 p.m. in Wesley Church Hall in Hamilton.

The Rev. Peter Tink, Minister of the Central Circuit and chairman of the Church's Reconciliation Committee, yesterday said the report would not be made public.

"It is an internal matter and will not be released,'' Mr. Tink said.

Before the Monday night congregation meeting, Professor Cartwright will preach at the 11.15 a.m. service at Grace Methodist Church in Pembroke.

Grace Methodist Church's lay preachers and the Synod have been embroiled in a bitter Supreme Court battle over the small Church's leadership.

The dispute is the result of a three-year split between the mainstream Methodist Church of Bermuda and Grace Church members over the Methodist affiliation with the United Church of Canada.

The congregation opposes the United Church's policy of ordaining gays.

On January 6, Puisne Judge Norma Wade-Miller ordered the church to hold two Sunday morning services. One conducted by lay preacher Willard Lightbourne takes place at 9.15 a.m. while the other, conducted by the Synod of the Wesleyan Methodist Church of Bermuda, starts at 11.15 a.m.

Prior to Mrs. Justice Wade-Miller's ruling, several services last summer saw Sunday churchgoers caught in a religious tug-of-war as the rival factions staged separate services at the same time.

The services saw two ministers, each armed with their own programmes and pianists, compete for the congregation's attention.