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Porter Fdn. Reaches Jerusalem

The Rev. Canon Nicholas T. Porter, the Rt. Rev. Suheil Dawani, and the Very Rev. Canon Gregory C. Jenks

St. George’s College in Jerusalem and Berkeley Divinity School at Yale University have formed a new partnership supported by a grant from the H. Boone and Violet M. Porter Foundation.

The grant will support a recent graduate of Berkeley Divinity School to serve an extended period (typically nine months) in residence at St. George’s College. The foundation, a longtime supporter of both St. George’s and Berkeley, has offered to fund this fellowship for ten years.

“The H. Boone and Violet M. Porter Charitable Foundation is committed to promoting global peace-builders and leadership for the Episcopal Church,” said the Rev. Canon Nicholas T. Porter, president of the foundation and a member of Berkeley’s board. “We are delighted to fund the Porter Fellowship at St. George’s College in Jerusalem and the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale.

“This will offer extraordinary Berkeley graduates valuable opportunities to learn from the witness of the college in the Holy Land, to participate in local peace-building, and to strengthen their ministries with needed knowledge, experience, and relationships.”

The Very Rev. Andrew McGowan, dean of Berkeley Divinity School, described the opportunities provided by this new partnership.

“This initiative from the Porter Foundation, together with the partnership of St. George’s College, promises a new and remarkable opportunity for Berkeley at Yale graduates,” McGowan said. “The historical and contemporary realities of Jerusalem invite learning about where the Church comes from, and also about where it needs to go. The fellowship deepens our capacity to form and support leaders, even after formal seminary education, whose experience reflects not only the reality of the Episcopal Church but the challenges facing global Anglicanism. We are very grateful to both these partners for this important step.”

St. George’s College is a center for study and reflection in the Holy Land. As a community of education, hospitality, pilgrimage, and reconciliation located in Jerusalem, it is a unique institution within the diverse Anglican Communion.

The Very Rev. Canon Gregory C. Jenks, dean of St. George’s, welcomed the new partnership: “The Porter Fellowship will help forge a strategic partnership between one of the premier universities of the world and St. George’s College in Jerusalem. This partnership will benefit the partners and the fellowship recipients in various ways. Berkeley Divinity School will gain a unique opportunity to advance its global leadership program. St. George’s College will benefit from the contributions of bright, theologically trained staff for ten years and systemic connections into the Episcopal Church. The fellowship recipients will benefit through opportunities to live, work, and grow in Jerusalem, the cradle of the Christian faith and a bellwether of our multicultural world.”

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