‘Depth, balance and pastoral wisdom’ marked ministry of retired Dean of Derry Very Rev. Raymond Stewart

The outgoing Dean celebrated his last service as Rector of the Parish of Templemore on New Year’s Eve.

Last week a special service was celebrated by the Pastoral Assistant at St. Columb’s Cathedral, Rev. Canon John Merrick, as the local congregation bade farewell to the Very Rev. Stewart who is retiring after almost half a century of ministry.

In a sermon Bishop Forster said: “Raymond’s ministry spanned some 46 and a half years all in the Diocese of Derry and Raphoe, which is quite remarkable. It has been a journey marked by faithfulness rather than fanfare; by steady devotion rather than self-promotion.”

Dean Stewart was ordained in St. Columb’s Cathedral by then Bishop Robin Eames in 1980 and since then had served as Curate in All Saints Clooney; and incumbencies in Dunfanaghy, Castledawson and Tamlaght O’Crilly Upper and Lower.

Dean Stewart, Bishop Forster said, brought ‘a deep love for the traditions of the Church of Ireland – not as museum pieces to be preserved but as living gifts to be received with reverence and offered with care’.

“He has been, throughout his ministry, a thoughtful liturgist, attentive to detail, sensitive to space and to science, and deeply aware that how we worship shapes who we become.

"As a preacher, he has never sought to dazzle but to illuminate – to let the light of Scripture fall clearly and honestly on the lives of God’s people – and his preaching has been marked by depth, balance and pastoral wisdom, rooted in prayer and shaped by a deep respect for both text and congregation.

“Above all, Raymond’s ministry has been sustained by prayerfulness and a holiness of life that has been evident to all who have worked with him, worshipped alongside him, or simply observed him quietly going about his calling.”

Dean Stewart was installed in the role in 2017 after his predecessor Dean William Morton was appointed Dean and Ordinary of Ireland's main Church of Ireland Cathedral, St Patrick's in Dublin.

Bishop Andrew expressed personal gratitude to Dean Stewart for the welcome and hospitality he had extended during the eight and a half years of his Deanship.

“He has exercised a ministry of guardianship and generosity, and he has held this Cathedral not as a possession but as a trust, a sacred space, where memory and hope meet, where history is honoured and the Gospel proclaimed afresh in each generation,” he said.

It is one of the most significant church roles in Ireland and between 1724 and 1733 was held by the philosopher George Berkeley, an important figure in subjectivist philosophy, who popularised the thought experiment ‘if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?’ expressed in his 1710 work, ‘A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge.’

The writer Jonathan Swift is believed to have sought the position prior to his installation as Dean of St. Patrick’s, Dublin.

At the end of the service, choir members formed a guard of honour as the Dean left the Cathedral at the end of the service.