People in the Diocese

The Vancouver School of Theology has announced it intends to award an honorary doctorate to Dean Peter Elliott at its May convocation. Dean Elliott has been the incumbent at Christ Church Cathedral since 1994, when he came from the Anglican Church of Canada's national office to Vancouver to be dean and rector.

He has served since as prolocutor of General Synod, chaired a task force negotiating the residential schools settlement, and currently is a co-chair of Diocesan Council's Strategic Plan Working Group.

Speaking of Elliotts, the Dean's brother, the Rev. Tim Elliott, has been invited by Bishop Michael Ingham to lead a day of reflection for clergy next month (Feb. 5) at St. Mary's Kerrisdale on "Ministry in a Time of Transition." Tim is a former parish priest in the Diocese of Toronto who now uses his talents as a jazz pianist in his current career as a vocational coach and counsellor. Tim recently led a session of music and counselling at Christ Church Cathedral at a congregation dinner meeting organized after several prominent members of the Cathedral parish died.

The bishop has appointed the Rev. Faun H. Harriman to the parish of St. Alban the Martyr, Burnaby. She comes from Haliburton in the Diocese of Toronto, and will start work at the beginning of March 1. Currently the Rev. Sue Foley-Currie is the priest-in charge.

Retired at the end of the year were the Rev. Graeme Brownlee, rector of St. Augustine's, and the Ven. Andrew Pike of St. Anne's, Steveston. (See Andrew's picture below.) At St. Anne's, the Rev. Marnie Peterson will be temporary priest-in-charge, working closely with the Rev. Gladys Olsen, a retired priest of the parish, until an incumbent is appointed.

At St. Francis-in-the-Wood, West Vancouver, the Rev. Emilie Smith will be temporary priest-in-charge starting January 14 when the Rev. Angus Stuart takes an extended study leave sabbatical.

The Rev. Lilian Elliott, deacon at St. Margaret of Scotland, has been rallying parishioners and others to assist a Burnaby family with a four-year-old boy who has a rare genetic condition called Costello syndrome, which affects the skin and heart. Elliott and others organized a community carol sing-a-long at St. Margaret's before Christmas.

St. Mark's Ocean Park has registered as a "Partner for Life" with Canadian Blood Services. On November 30, five members of the parish were picked up by the Canadian Blood Services van, after the morning service, and taken to donate blood.

Giving the gift of life is one of the many outreach projects of our parish of St. Mark's Ocean Park. The blood donor contingent was made up of Holly Bear Tanksley, Ann Thiessen, the Rev. Craig Tanksley (who gave for the first time), Kathy Tubbs and Pauline Blachford.

An historic lectern hanging belonging to St. Mark’s Kitsilano is moving to a heritage log church in Alberta.

The pale blue and silver brocade hanging was made from the drapery that adorned Westminster Abbey during the coronation of King George VI in 1937. A larger piece of the brocade became an altar cloth in St. Aidan and St. Hilda Anglican Church in Rexboro, near Lake Wabamun on the Yellowhead Highway in the Diocese of Edmonton.

When an historical researcher with the Province of Alberta discovered the existence of the St. Mark’s hanging in an Edmonton Journal article from June 30, 1938, he e-mailed the parish requesting a photo of the historic textile to include in the documentation of the brocade altar cloth.

Instead, the Chancel Guild of St. Mark’s offered to donate the lectern hanging to St. Aidan and St. Hilda’s, now a Registered Historic Resource of the Province of Alberta