Province Chooses Tutu As Primate
Episcopal News Service. April 17, 1986 [86079]
CAPE TOWN, (DPS, April 17) -- Bishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel peace laureate and outspoken foe of apartheid, has been elected the first black Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town. As Archbishop, he will be primate and metropolitan of the Anglican Church in Southern Africa.
"Our church has decided that this is the person to be titular head," Tutu said after his election. "People have to read whatever signals they want in that."
In a cable, Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning told Tutu, "I welcome the news of your election to Cape Town and the Province of Southern Africa. On behalf of the Episcopal Church in the USA, I send you congratulations, continued prayers and pledge of our support. We thank God for you election and we pray that he will bless and increase your new ministry. I look forward to that time when we are together so that I may extend to you my personal greetings and support."
Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie, commenting on Tutu's election said, "He is fundamentally a spiritual leader of the kind that South Africa needs at this moment. Everything that Desmond says and does springs from his faith in God and his personal piety. He is a man of courage and longs for the peace and unity of his country."
As head of the Anglican Church, the fourth largest church in the Republic of South Africa, the Archbishop of Cape Town commands great authority when he speaks on social and political as well as religious issues. The election gives Tutu one of the most important forums in the country for his vigorous advocacy of the abolition of apartheid and the transition to black rule.
Last week, Tutu called on foreign countries and businesses to impose punitive sanctions on South Africa in an effort to force it to eliminate its system of racial separation. There was considerable speculation that the move Jeopardized his chances for being selected successor to Archbishop Philip Russell, who is to retire in August.
But his election came in Just one day, far sooner than religious experts had predicted. Indeed, Tutu said there had been none of the acrimony in the Elective Assembly that many people had expected.
"First of all, I want to indicate from all accounts the Elective Assembly was a happy occasion," Tutu said. "There was no recrimination."
Under a lead-gray morning sky, more than 400 representatives of the church's clergy and laity strolled across the immaculate lawn of Diocesan College, the church's elite boarding school, into a vaulted white-painted chapel, on April 14 called the Elective Assembly, the Anglicans represented parishes from across the country, although most came from this city because the Archbishop will preside over the Cape Town diocese.
The Assembly's deliberations were to conclude at 6 p.m., but when the doors to the chapel were not unlocked at that time a scattering of church members around the entrance began to speculate that a decision was near. At 7:15 p.m, the doors were suddenly thrown open, light poured from the chapel into the darkness of the campus, and Bishop Tutu stepped into the cool air. Then he turned to shake the hands of each elector as they slowly filed from the church.
"I myself am overwhelmed and deeply shattered by the responsibility that God, through his church, has placed on my shoulders," the Archbishop-elect said afterward.
And then, as if to answer the unspoken fears of some church members, he continued: "It is very important to get rid of the notion that Tutu will stand out on his own account. The Archbishop is a focus and spokesperson for the synod of bishops usually. You do not see here a one-man band about to explode on the on the scene in South Africa.
"I suppose there will be some people who are not exactly enamored of my election. They must remember that the church does not belong to Desmond Tutu."
Nonetheless, Bishop Tutu insisted that he would not still his voice in protest against the policies of the South African Government. "I will continue to work for fundamental change in our country," he said. "We belong in one family, black and white."
The 2.6 million member Church encompasses not only South Africa, but Namibia, Mozambique, Lesotho and Swaziland as well. Tutu will succeed Russell on Sept. 1.