General Synod 2016 to be held in Toronto

The July 6 session of General Synod 2013 ended with an expression of thanks by Archbishop Colin Johnson of Toronto to the diocese of Ottawa for hosting General Synod 2013. He also invited members to attend General Synod in Toronto in three years’ time.

Johnson gave five tongue-in-cheek reasons for holding the 2016 synod in Toronto, the most practical being that delegates have to connect through Pearson Airport anyway, and not the least being that “Toronto may be a place you love to hate, but the Bible says to love your enemies.” Then there’s Toronto’s “media icon” mayor, Rob Ford, he said.

Archbishop Fred Hiltz then thanked outgoing prolocutor Robert Falby, a lawyer and canon law expert, for his many services to the church. Prolocutor since 2009 and chancellor of the diocese of Toronto, Falby received an honorary doctorate from Trinity College in May for his devotion to the church. The primate praised Falby’s “wisdom, wit, insight, pragmatism and deep love of this church.”

Falby is succeeded by the newly elected prolocutor, the Ven. Harry Huskins of the diocese of Algoma.

Hiltz offered special thanks to Dianne Izzard, assistant to General Secretary Michael Thompson and the Church House’s lead staff person in planning the complex meetings of General Synod and Council of General Synod. He said that Izzard, who will retire next spring, had “the spirit of both Martha and Mary,” the hospitality of the former and the devotion to Christ’s teachings of the latter.

The closing motion of thanks was delivered in the form of a prayer led by the Ven. Ansley Tucker of the diocese of Calgary.