13.11.2008
Service Marks New Beginnings at Church of Ireland Theological Institute
A special service of Inauguration for the Church of Ireland Theological Institute (formerly College) and Commissioning of its Director, the Revd Dr Maurice Elliott, was held at Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin this evening. Attended by a large congregation of clergy and laity including current students and participants in the Institute’s new Foundation Course, the service was presided over by the Archbishop of Dublin, the Most Revd Dr John Neill. The preacher was the Archbishop of Armagh, the Most Revd Alan Harper, OBE.
The event marked another key stage in the development of the Institute and future training for Church of Ireland ministry following an historic agreement with Trinity College, Dublin last month which introduced a pioneering Master’s Degree Course in Theology. The partnership between the two institutions expresses one especially committed to faith formation and pastoral ministry and a university environment committed to academic education, scholarship and research. Speaking before the service, Dr Maurice Elliott explained, ‘Through its new course the Institute intends to equip and prepare people effectively for the mission of the church in 21st-century Ireland on the basis of a rigorous integration of theory and practice. In due course it will serve the training needs of those entering ordained ministry and others who wish to remain in lay ministry. I look forward to seeing the Institute thrive as a central hub of life of the Church of Ireland’
In his address, Archbishop Alan Harper said, ‘We must make things new in order to be better fitted and more effective for the demands of a new time. This is the lofty aspiration of the nascent Church of Ireland Theological Institute.’
The Bishop of Clogher, the Rt Revd Dr Michael Jackson, Chair of the Ministry Formation Project, further commented, ‘The Theological Institute offers to members of the Church of Ireland a new way of collaborative learning which will involve the Church in its totality. Exciting pathways of training for lay leadership and service will open up alongside and in combination with training of clergy for freshly focussed ordained ministry.’