The Royal Commission into child sex abuse is holding its sixth public hearing relating to the Anglican Church in Newcastle.
Several former bishops of the Newcastle diocese will be among those giving testimony.
On the first day of hearings, witnesses included two survivors of sexual abuse.
One of them detailed being assaulted by a minister and taken to a home for boys where he was forced into performing sexual acts, sometimes with mulitple men.
Outside the court protesters were determined to support the victims giving evidence.
Inside, Counsel Assisting Naomi Sharp outlined the horror that would be contained within the evidence.
SHARP
"Another issue for consideration during this case study is whether there was a culture within the diocese that permitted child sexual abuse to flourish, and which protected perpetrators."
Cessnock-based minister Father Peter Rushton, who's now dead, raped Paul Gray for the first time when he was just ten years old.
Mr Gray says he was raped on a weekly or fortnightly basis until he was 14.
GRAY
"On many of these occasions Father Peter would cut my back with a small knife and smear my blood on my back and I would like to add there that was (intended to be) symbolic of the blood of Christ."
