Peter Elliott & Elizabeth Ruder-Celiz

Interim Anglican Leadership Appointments

Vancouver School of Theology is pleased to announce the appointment of The Very Reverend Dr. Peter Elliott as Interim Director of Anglican Formation and The Reverend Elizabeth Ruder-Celiz as Associate Anglican Formation Director effective January 1, 2022. We are grateful to Peter and Elizabeth for taking up this important work and excited by the wisdom and experience they bring to the school as a whole. President Richard Topping said, “I am thrilled by these important interim appointments for the school.” Peter and Elizabeth will serve in these positions until May 31, 2022.

The Reverend Grant Rodgers, our current Director of Anglican Formation and Studies, retires effective December 31, 2021. We are grateful to Grant for the faithful service he has given to the school and the church. The students love him. President Topping said, “We will miss Grant’s wisdom, collaborative spirit, dedication to the students and good humour.” Grant will teach a course at VST in the spring semester in his early retirement!

VST has made these interim appointments to ensure that our Anglican students are well supported in formation for ministry. We expect that the search for Grant’s permanent successor will result in an appointment effective July 1, 2022. A search committee is already at work.

About The Very Reverend Dr. Peter Elliott
Currently Adjunct Faculty at Vancouver School of Theology, Peter also has a private practice through Elliott Resource Services, Pacific as a consultant and coach. He’s a featured writer on the arts and culture in the national newspaper of the Anglican Church of Canada–the Anglican Journal, and co-hosts, with Dean Nathan LeRud the popular podcast The Gospel and Musical Theatre produced through Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, Portland Oregon.

An Anglican priest, ordained in Niagara Diocese in 1980, Peter served as Dean of the Diocese of New Westminster and Rector of Christ Church Cathedral Vancouver from 1994-2019. Prior to his work in Vancouver, he worked at Anglican National Church House in Toronto as Director of Ministries in Church and Society, and for the Diocese of Toronto as the Coordinator of the LOGOS Institute. He has served parishes in Hamilton, Oakville and Toronto. Peter holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Trent University Peterborough (1976), a Master of Divinity degree from Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge Massachusetts (1980) and a Doctor of Divinity degree (honoris causa) from Vancouver School of Theology (2009). His wide experience of the life of the church makes him an ideal choice for the interim position of Director of Anglican Denominational Formation.

Peter has held a variety of positions in the church beyond his diocesan and Cathedral ministries: active in the national Anglian Church he served as Prolocutor of the General Synod (2004-2007)
and as the priest representative to the Anglican Consultative Council. He was the Chancellor of Vancouver School of Theology from 2011-2015.

“I look forward to working with Anglican students and with President Topping and the faculty in helping VST to form thoughtful, generous and engaged leaders for the church.”

About The Reverend Elizabeth Ruder-Celiz
Hello, I am the Rev. Elizabeth Ruder-Celiz, and this term I am your Assistant Denominational Director of Anglican Formation, along with my other role as School Chaplain. I’m very excited to be with you in this new way. I am an Anglican Priest; ordained in 2005 and have over 15 years experience in the life of the Church, ministering in many different settings and in many different roles (rural multipoint to large urban parish). I graduated from VST in 2005 with a Master’s in Divinity and I have completed a unit of Clinical Pastoral Education at Swedish Medical Centre in Seattle. Most of my working life has been in British Columbia both here in the Lower Mainland and in the Interior. I have worked in large parishes and small parishes, I have worked with Lay Ministers, and locally raised clergy as well as in large clergy teams. I have worked with youth and families, and people of all ages in our amazing Church community. I have shoveled snow and figured out how to re-lite a pilot light and have worked in places with people who take care of that sort of thing! I approach my ministry with joy and humor, and I am looking forward to this new experience mentoring and ministering with you and with Peter Elliott!

I’m particularly passionate about formation through worship, and the support of people going through discernment. Anglicans are formed through our worship, we find voice and mission, and passion through being together with God in worship day after day after day. My role with you is to support your formation through worship, to be a listening ear and help you find your voice, so that when you leave here you feel more comfortable in your own liturgical and pastoral skin. I am here with an ear to listen and help you discern where God is calling you, my role is pastoral but not evaluative. Please feel free to be in touch, I’m always good for a coffee and a pastry! I am very excited about the journey of this next term.

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