Tributes

One of the longest-serving leaders in the Anglican Church of Canada (ACoC) has died. Michael Geoffrey Peers, who served as primate from 1986 to 2004, died in Toronto on July 27. He was 88.

THOMAS “Tom” Fitches was the superb organist and beloved choral director. at St. Clement’s Anglican Church in North Toronto from 1973 to 2015, and – in semi-retirement – served as organist at Grace Church-on- the-Hill. Despite a cancer diagnosis, he continued to serve, play and teach in churches throughout the city. He passed away on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 22. 

WHEN HE WAS only five years old, young Joseph Ratzinger longed to become a cardinal – a dream he eventually realized. But when he was eligible to be elected pope, the elderly cardinal only wanted to retire to his books. He was elected Pope against his wishes, and served as the head of the Roman Catholic Church for almost eight years. Yet instead of dying in the office, he took the almost unprecedented step of retiring to a life of prayer and died almost a decade later on the last day of 2022. He was 95. 

HARRY ANTONIDES, a founder of the Christian Labour Association of Canada and also the co-founder of the faith-based think tank that eventually became Cardus, passed away on Nov. 4. He was 91. 

WHEN PRINCESS ELIZABETH was born on April 21, 1926, she was not expected to become Queen, let alone Britain’s longest-ruling monarch. True, she was third in the line of succession to her grandfather King George V after her Uncle Edward and her father Albert. But Edward was young and likely to marry and have children …

ALL CHRISTIANS are called to evangelize but as former Anglican Primate Michael Peers wrote, “Few Canadians have been able to reach as widely around the world as Marney Patterson.” The Anglican evangelist ministered in over 500 Anglican Churches in 92 dioceses and

DESPITE his diminutive stature, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu has been described as the last remaining giant of the anti-apartheid movement. He died from cancer

THE HEAD OF the Anglican Studies program at Regent College in Vancouver and a key figure in the Essentials movement and the Anglican Network in Canada has died suddenly. Dr. Donald “Don” Munro Lewis suffered a fatal cardiac arrest on Oct. 19 in Vancouver. He was 71. 

Lewis taught Church History for four decades at Regent, becoming the college’s