wfn.org | Car accident takes lives of two Indian bishops and their driver

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Note #6301 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

12-December-2000
00445

Car accident takes lives of two Indian bishops and their driver

Bishop Vinod Peter was key Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) partner

by Anto Akkara

NEW DELHI -- Bishop Vinod Peter, a leading Indian clergyman and president of
the National Council of Churches in India (NCCI), died in a road accident in
the Indian state of Rajasthan on  Dec. 6, along with a local church leader,
Bishop Jerald Andrews.

	Sixty-one-year-old Bishop Peter, who as moderator of the Church of North
India (CNI) -- the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s primary partner church in
India -- was on an official visit to the state, was killed when the driver
of the van in which he was traveling with the CNI's Bishop Andrews, of
Rajasthan, lost control of the vehicle and hit a tree near the roadside.
Both bishops died instantly, while the driver died the next morning,
officers at Bishop Peter's diocesan office in Nagpur, central India, told
ENI.

	Bishop of Nagpur since 1984, Bishop Peter was elected moderator of the
synod of the CNI, one of India's leading churches, in October 1998. In March
this year he was elected by a unanimous vote as president of the NCCI, an
influential forum of 29 Orthodox and Protestant churches.

	Bishop Peter's wife Rachael is bedridden following a severe accident a few
weeks ago. He also leaves behind a son.

	Sixty-year-old Jerald Andrews of Rajasthan, who also died in the accident,
was consecrated bishop in 1993 and leaves behind his wife and two daughters.

	The death of Bishop Peter, the country's senior ecumenical official, is an
especially severe blow to Indian churches as it follows by only six months
the death, also in a car accident, in Poland, of Archbishop Alan Basil de
Lastic of Delhi, president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India
(CBCI).

	"This is a great shock to the entire Christian community in India," NCCI's
senior vice president Mar Geevarghese Coorilos, of the Malankara Orthodox
Syrian Church, said of Bishop Peter's death. Speaking to ENI from the city
of Pune in western India, Mar Coorilos, assistant Metropolitan of Bombay,
said that Bishop Peter had been "actively involved in ecumenical and
inter-religious fields" as well as "down to earth in serving the people."

	In a statement released Dec. 7, Bishop Peter's diocese said he "was a
unique leader and exceptional man who served the people with humility ... He
was a visionary of great ideals, but retained a lifestyle of simplicity."

	V. S. Lal, general secretary of the CNI synod, said the "untimely and
tragic death" of Bishop Peter was "a great loss to the churches in India,
particularly to the Church of North
India." Lal said Bishop Peter "made a tremendous contribution to the life
and work of the churches in India, and has been a member of several
ecumenical bodies both in India and abroad,
particularly the Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Communion."

	Archbishop Oswald Gracias, secretary general of the CBCI, told ENI as he
prepared to go to Nagpur to attend Bishop Peter's Dec. 8 funeral: "We have
lost a very good friend with whom we had total understanding."

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