11/06/2014
by Muriel Porter and Mark Brolly

Bishop John McIntyre of Gippsland has died after a short illness.

The 62-year-old bishop, who had led Gippsland’s Anglicans since 2006, died at Monash Medical Centre, Clayton, on 6 June, almost a week after being admitted to intensive care.

He is survived by his wife Jan, their three children — Paul, Jessica and Lisa — his parents, Ken (a retired Anglican priest) and Vicky McIntyre and two siblings, his brother Ken (Bruce) and sister Barbara Kerle.

Bishop McIntyre’s funeral will be held on Tuesday 17 June at 11 am at St Saviour’s Church in Redfern in Sydney, at his family’s request, to enable his elderly parents to be present along with many of his former parishioners. Bishop McIntyre was Rector of St Saviour’s from 1990-2006.

Archbishop Philip Freier will represent the Anglican Province of Victoria at the funeral, after which a private cremation will be held at 3pm.

A Celebration of Bishop McIntyre’s life will be held in St Paul’s Cathedral, Melbourne, at 11am on 17 June to coincide with the funeral service in Sydney. All are welcome.

Gippsland will remember its 11th bishop at a Memorial Eucharist on Friday 20 June at 1pm at St Paul’s Cathedral in Sale. This service — to be attended by the Primate, Archbishop Phillip Aspinall, Dr Freier and the bishops of Victoria — is expected to draw a big congregation to celebrate Bishop McIntyre’s life and ministry.

Bishop McIntyre earned a reputation as a strong progressive voice for good in many areas over the 37 years of his ministry, including his acceptance of gay people and his work with the disadvantaged and marginalised, especially Aboriginal people, as well as giving unfailing support for women’s ministry.

John Charles McIntyre – always known affectionately as “John Mac” or “Johnny Mac”, even as a bishop – was born in Sydney in 1951.

His family moved to Melbourne when he was a teenager, and he attended Brighton Grammar School before studying for ordained ministry at Ridley College, Melbourne. During that time, he married Jan Clode.

After ordination as a deacon in 1977 and as a priest the following year, John McIntyre served at Dandenong before taking charge of Thomastown parish in 1979, where he stayed until 1983. He was a lecturer at Ridley from 1983-90 and worked part-time in Port Melbourne parish for two years before moving to Sydney in 1990 to begin a defining ministry as Rector of St Saviour’s Redfern, where he remained for 15 years.

He quickly became a highly respected and loved leader in a diverse community marked by disadvantage and need. Known as the “the Rev”, he made the parish the centre of many community activities and in 1997 was named Citizen of the Year by South Sydney Council. His ministry focused on people at risk of social and economic exclusion, especially Indigenous people.

In 2006, he returned to Victoria when he was elected Bishop of Gippsland. At his consecration in St Paul’s Cathedral, Melbourne, his friend the Revd Dr Bill Lawton described the new bishop as a “man whose heart lay with the alien and the outsider”. His passion for the dispossessed and the marginalised, and the same strong advocacy on their behalf, marked his all-too-short time in Gippsland.

Only three weeks before he died, Bishop McIntyre delivered what would be his final presidential address to Gippsland’s annual synod, calling on the Church to “be present in community with an integrity of being that assures all those whose lives we touch that we are there alone for their wellbeing; that we are constantly and consistently committed to peace with justice, mercy and inclusion”.

Since his death, tributes have flooded in. One from Pastor Ray Minniecon, the CEO of the Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation in NSW, went to the heart of Bishop McIntyre’s life and ministry: “John Mac”, he said, “knew how to put his faith into overalls.”

http://www.melbourneanglican.org.au/NewsAndViews/Pages/Gippsland-Bishop-John-McIntyre-dies,-aged-62-000566.aspx