Mark Pellew, who was until recently British Ambassador to the Holy See, has taken up a new appointment with effect from 14 October as Chief Executive to the Secretary General in the Anglican Communion Office, Canon John L. Peterson announced.
During his four and a half years at the Embassy to the Holy See, Mr Pellew was closely involved in promoting Anglican-Roman Catholic relations in Rome. Earlier this year he initiated and put on, in collaboration with Norwich Cathedral, a widely-visited public exhibition in the Vatican on "Anglicanism and the Western Christian Tradition".
This exhibition, the first ever mounted inside the Vatican by any non-Roman Catholic Church, was visited by the retiring Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, when he paid his farewell call on Pope John Paul II last June. Dr Carey said that the exhibition would play a significant part in deepening understanding of the Anglican tradition.
The aim of Ambassador Pellew’s new appointment is to enable the Secretary General, Canon John L Peterson, to spend more time visiting the 38 provinces of the worldwide Anglican Communion and raising funds for its endowment. Mr Pellew will meanwhile take on some of the administrative load of the day-to-day management of the Anglican Communion Office.
Pellew, 60, is a practising Anglican who comes to the Anglican Communion Office after 37 years as a professional diplomat. In the course of his career he served overseas in Singapore, Vietnam, Italy and the United States, in addition to his final appointment as Ambassador to the Holy See in Rome from 1998 to 2002.
He is married to Dr Jill Pellew, a professional fundraiser who works for an American consultancy firm and was previously Director of the Oxford University Development Office. They have two grown up sons, one a civil engineer and the other a lawyer. Among his hobbies Mark Pellew lists barbershop singing and playing the horn.
He said that he is greatly looking forward to the challenge of his new appointment, where he hopes to be able to put his diplomatic skills to good effect to promote better understanding of the Anglican Communion around the world.