Obituaries—2003

Following revision of the WCC directory and annual report in 2004, The Ecumenical Review will provide an annual record of deaths within the ecumenical movement. Please address death notices with relevant details either to the editorial offices of this journal or to the general secretariat of the World Council of Churches.

Paul Tex Koku Adzor, executive secretary of the youth desk for the All Africa Conference of Churches, died at the age of 34 on 25 May 2003 in Nairobi. A member of the Presbyterian Church of Togo, Adzor was a popular speaker and the author of several texts including the AACC's manual for youth on economic globalization and the churches.

Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom), a long-time leader of the Orthodox community in Great Britain, died at the age of 89 on 4 August 2003. Metropolitan Filaret of Minsk presided at his funeral in the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of London. Metropolitan Anthony spent 54 years as a pastor to a predominantly English flock, beginning as chaplain to the ecumenical Fellowship of Saint Alban and Saint Sergius. He became bishop of the first Russian diocese in England, later rising to the positions of Metropolitan and Exarch for Western Europe. He served as a member of the Russian Orthodox delegation to the New Delhi assembly of the World Council of Churches in 1961 when the Russian Orthodox Church joined the Council, and he was elected to the WCC central committee at Uppsala in 1968.

Canaan Sodino Banana, a Methodist minister and first president of Zimbabwe, died on 10 November 2003 at the age of 67. Dr Banana was an early proponent of political ministry, challenging the mainstream churches to take a stance against the unjust colonial misrule in Rhodesia. He was one of the most vocal people against the South African apartheid system and a strong supporter of the WCC's Programme to Combat Racism. He retired from government in 1987 and became a teacher at the United Theological College in Harare and at the University of Zimbabwe where he was professor of religious studies and philosophy.

Inga-Brita Castren, the former general secretary of the Finnish ecumenical council, died on 31 December 2003 at the age of 84. Castren worked with the WSCF and the YWCA in the 1960s, and joined the WCC in 1969 as executive secretary for mission education, returning to Finland in 1973.

Peter Carpio Soto, Katrina Frandsen, and Per Leonardsson, church-related aid workers, were killed in an automobile accident near Arequipa, Peru, in May 2003. Carpio Soto, director of the Peruvian organization Asociacion Accion Social y Desarrollo, was acting as a guide for Frandsen and Leonardsson, who served on the staff of the Church of Sweden. Carin Gardbring, director of that church's international aid work, commented, "Their deaths are a great loss to this valuable work. They were all people borne by their faith and commitment to the work towards peace and justice."

Marie-Therese Danielsson, opponent of nuclear testing and proponent of independence for the peoples of the Pacific, died in Tahiti on 6 February 2003 at the age of 79. A native of France, she traveled to French Polynesia where she met and married the Swedish anthropologist Bengt Danielsson, a veteran of the 1947 Kon-Tiki expedition. Together, they gained prominence in the movement for a nuclear-free Pacific which garnered ever-increasing support of regional church bodies and world ecumenical organizations from the 1960s. The Danielssons co-authored a series of scientific and culture studies, the best-known of which is Moruroa Mon Amour.

Olle Engstrom, a former leader of the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden who served on the executive and central committees of the World Council of Churches, died at age 83 on 26 December 2003. Headmaster of the theological seminary of his church from 1962 to 1985, Engstrom was also active in the Swedish Free Church Council, Student Christian Federation, Conference of European Churches, International Congregational Council and World Alliance of Reformed Churches. He was a delegate of his church to the founding assembly of the WCC at Amsterdam in 1948. He is remembered as a courageous advocate for religious liberty and the rights of independent and minority churches.

Hans-Otto Hahn, a minister in the Evangelical Church of Hessen and Nassau, Germany, and former director of Bread for the World, died on 3 November 2003 at the age of 67. During his time as vice-president of the Diakonische Werk he was also responsible for the programme "churches helping churches", the scholarship programme "hope for Eastern Europe" and the emergency help. Hahn was one of the founding members of the worldwide ecumenical network Action by Churches Together.

Andrew Hsiao, former vice president of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), died on 25 May 2003 at the age of 77. A member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hong Kong, Hsiao was president emeritus of the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Hong Kong where he had served on the faculty since 1958. He was the LWF's vice president for the Asia region from 1977 to 1984.