wfn.org | First for South African women and Presbyterians

[wfn@wfn.org]

18 September 2000
Cape Town

In an historic ceremony, the first woman to head a major denomination in
South Africa was inducted on Sunday 17th September.

The Rev Diane Vorster was set apart as Moderator of the General Assembly of
the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa. She will preside over
General Assembly sessions, being held at Gordon's Bay, near Cape Town, this
week, and hold office until September 2001.

The UPCSA was formed only a year ago by the union of the Presbyterian
Church of Southern Africa and the Reformed Presbyterian Church of South
Africa.

The former PCSA ordained its first woman minister 24 years ago, in 1976,
and although women have held moderatorial office at presbytery level, Rev
Vorster is the first woman to be called and inducted to the office at the
highest level in the denomination.

In her address to a congregation of over 1 000 at the opening public
worship service, Rev Vorster noted that she took office at the start of a
new century and millennium, and that her induction represented a new style
of leadership. She called on the church to be different from the
surrounding world. it was looking for answers to the moral and ethical
dilemmas of the day. These could only be found, she said: "...in an
encounter with the 'Christ of indignation', who was disturbed by the
oppression and abuse of the dispossessed".

Rev Dave Wanless - Assembly Media Officer
24 Dunluce Avenue
Claremont
7708 South Africa
Tel & Fax: +27 (21) 683-9665
Cell: 082 958-6482
E-mail: davecong@mweb.co.za
Website: www.uccsa.co.za