Meet the
Secretary General

The Revd Canon John L. Peterson is the Secretary General of the Anglican Communion. What does that mean?

His primary job, Canon Peterson answers, is to serve the Lambeth Conference and other Anglican Communion bodies. The Archbishop of Canterbury calls the Conference and invites all the bishops to attend. It is he who appointed John Peterson to be the Secretary of the Lambeth Conference.

Canon Peterson works daily with Lambeth Conference Manager David Long, who shares with him the responsibility for making sure the conference needs are met in all their multi-faceted forms.

But the Secretary General is also sensitive to the Anglican Communion in other ways.

"It is important for the Secretary General to become intimately aware of the great pain as well as the hopes and expectations of each Province", Canon Peterson says. JJust yesterday I received a letter from a Bishop in Uganda telling me about the drought that has ravaged Uganda and that 500 members of the Anglican Church in his diocese have lost their lives because of the drought.

"And Rwanda is a heartbreaking tragedy in which an even greater number of innocent people suffer and lose their lives.

"For me, these tragedies have to be shared with the other members of the Body of Christ. We simply do not function in isolation but as a part of a family, part of a communion. The tragedies of that drought in Uganda and the war in Rwanda affects everyone else and I believe that we must make ourselves accessible to meet those needs.

"I myself have always maintained an open-door policy and it is important that people of the communion know tjat they are always welcome at the Anglican Communion Office."

What he likes best about his job, Canon Peterson says, is the tremendous diversity and the enthusiasm of the people in the Church to share each other's stories and to help that sharing take place.

"I believe in an inclusive church," he adds. "I believe that we are not a private club, but a communion in which there can be no distinctions made between male and female, Jew and Greek, black and white."

Canon Peterson, fifth such officer in the Anglican Communion, took office January 1, 1995. Bishop Stephen F. Bayne Jr., first held the post in 1960 as 'Executive Officer', followed by Bishop Ralph Dean. Under the current title of 'Secretary General' came Bishop John Howe and Canon Sam Van Culin. Canon Peterson was previously Dean of St. George's College, a residential continuing education college in Jerusalem owned and maintained by the Diocese of Jerusalem for the Anglican Communion and open to all Christians.

The Lambeth Conference is one of four instruments for Anglican unity served by the Secretary General. Another is the Anglican Consultative Council, the legislative body of the Communion. A third is the Primates Meeting through which the Anglican Communion bishops can stay in touch with each other more effectually than the decade-apart Lambeth Conferences allows.

The last - yet in fact of prime importance instrument of unity served by the Secretary General and his staff, is the Archbishop of Canterbury. In his travels, the Archbishop has become a living symbol of our growing global family.

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