Interactive Forum with the Rev. Canon Nicholas Porter
The Rev Canon Nicholas Porter will be our guest preacher and teacher. Father Nicholas is the founding director of Jerusalem Peacebuilders – a ministry of interfaith reconciliation that specializes in peace and leadership education in Jerusalem, Israel, and Palestine.
After the 8 a.m. service, he will be leading an interactive forum in the Library, entitled Chosen Traumas, Chosen Glories, that explores how foundational identities cause families, groups, and nations to act like individuals and often lead to intractable conflict. When events – no matter how horrific – shape identity, they never fade away. Instead, they shape and trigger behavior on the battlefields of Ukraine, among Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs, and in our lives today.
The Rev. Canon Nicholas Porter is the Founding Director of Jerusalem Peacebuilders (JPB), a ministry of interfaith reconciliation that partners with Jewish, Christian, and Muslim organizations to provide Israeli Jewish and Palestinian Arab educators and youth with the skills, relationships, and support they need to be effective agents of positive change. In 2011, JPB began with 11 participants. In 2022, JPB impacted 10,000 adults and youth. A hallmark of his global ministry has been the promotion of education and healthcare essential to human progress and interfaith understanding. The former International Chaplin to the Anglican Archbishop in Jerusalem, Nicholas currently serves on the boards of the American Friends of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem and the North American Committee of St. George’s College in Jerusalem. He also offers extensive leadership to the Order of St. John and St. John Eye Hospital Group. In 2008, Canon Porter was made a Knight in the Order of St. John by H.M. Queen Elizabeth II for his work supporting healthcare in Jerusalem. In 2016, Dwight Hall at Yale University awarded him the Curran Prize for distinguished public service for his contributions to peace and leadership education among youth. Nicholas holds advanced degrees in Middle East Studies, Theology, War Studies, and Conflict Transformation. A two-time graduate from Yale University, he served on the board of the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale, initiating strategic projects in environmental theology and priestly formation in Jerusalem. Since 2008, Porter has taught homiletics at St. Nersess Armenian Orthodox Seminary. An Episcopal priest and educator, Canon Porter served at St. George’s Cathedral and College in Jerusalem, the American Cathedral in Paris (France), Emmanuel Church in Geneva (Switzerland), Trinity Church in Southport, CT, and St. Mary’s in the Mountains in Wilmington, VT. He and his wife, Dorothy Meek Porter, live on Acer Farm in Guilford, Vermont. They have three adult daughters.
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