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New Secretary General for Anglican Communion Welcomed

Episcopal News Service. January 19, 1995 [95004]

James Rosenthal, Director of Communications for the Anglican Communion

Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey welcomed the new secretary general of the Anglican Communion with sobering words.

"The Communion you are going to serve is a suffering Communion," Carey told the Rev. Canon John L. Peterson at a welcoming celebration at Lambeth Palace January 4. Peterson, the former dean of St. George's Cathedral in Jerusalem, succeeds the Rev. Canon Samuel Van Culin who served as secretary general for the past 12 years.

"In a way it is curiously similar to the diocese you have been part of for a number of years, for the Diocese of Jerusalem has had more than its share of suffering," Carey continued. "Our Communion includes the suffering Province of the Sudan, the tortured Province of Rwanda and many other poor, broken and even persecuted places."

Still, Carey added, "God has his way of surprising us -- because these very places of torment and agony are the very places where exciting growth is taking place and where God is at work."

A large congregation with representatives from the provinces of the United States, England, Scotland and Ireland attended the welcoming Evensong in Lambeth Palace Chapel and the following reception. The historic chapel is a focal point in the Anglican Communion because many of the early bishops from other provinces were consecrated there.

The secretary general is responsible for the meetings of the Anglican Consultative Council, the Primates of the Communion and the Lambeth Conference. He also heads the Communion's London-based staff. Peterson, a missionary priest of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, officially began his duties in January after 12 years in the Holy Land. His home diocese is the Diocese of Western Michigan. He and his wife, Kirsten, have two adopted Palestinian children.

On Peterson's first day at the staff offices at Partnership House on Waterloo Road in London, he said that "today marks a new beginning for me and my family, a new year for us all, and God willing and God's people responding, a new commitment for the people of our Communion to be lights in this world, and, dare I say, Anglican lights."

Peterson continued, "I firmly believe we as a church have so much to offer the world in Jesus' name. One of the most important tasks facing Anglican Christians, especially as we approach the next millennium, is to see our communion as an inclusive family of people, where all, and I mean all, are welcome to bring their lives, talents and energies together for the accomplishing of Christ's work in this world."

In one of his first actions, Peterson joined the Most Rev. Samir Kafity, primate of the Church of Jerusalem and the Middle East, at a Eucharist at St. Paul's Church, Covent Garden, to mark the 12th anniversary of the primate's enthronement. In his sermon, Kafity traced the history of the Anglican witness in Jerusalem and the Middle East, and spoke of the need for interfaith dialogue and reconciliation on all fronts.

Echoing Carey's words, Kafity spoke of Jerusalem as a "besieged" city, but also referred to the hope of the "gospel of peace."