Former Moderator and General Secretary of the Presbyterian Church, Dr Jack Weir, who died on September 18th aged 81, had an outstanding career of service to the church.
Dr Weir served as a missionary in China, a parish minister in Letterkenny and for 20 years was the clerk and general secretary of the Presbyterian Church. He was elected moderator in 1976.
A man of courage and conviction, Dr Weir was not afraid to take initiatives that others shied away from. In December 1974, along with the Rev Eric Gallagher and other churchmen, he met the IRA leadership at Feakle, Co Clare, in an attempt to begin dialogue that might ultimately lead to the end of violence. In April 1992, with former moderator Dr Godfrey Brown, he was involved in further meetings with paramilitary organisations and political groups, including Gerry Adams and Tom Hartley of Sinn Fein.
In another controversial initiative he led a Presbyterian Church delegation to meet Pope John Paul II during his visit to Ireland in 1979. He was also involved in the Ballymascanlon inter-church talks between the Protestant churches and the Catholic Church and assisted in formalising regular meetings of the four main church leaders.
A man of vision, Dr Weir was concerned that the Presbyterian side of the Northern Ireland situation was not being told in the US and in 1981 he organised a delegation of senior Presbyterians which visited the main cities in the US to put their side of the story.
In more recent years his courage was further demonstrated as he fought the effects of Parkinson's Disease, maintaining his interest in church affairs and in particular his love for China, where he was born. In 1996, he defied medical advice to visit China for the last time, travelling to Shenyang, where he was born and brought up. "I had come full circle," was his emotional response, "I had come home."
Andrew John (Jack) Weir was born on March 24th, 1919, in Mukden, Manchuria, now Shenyang City, China, the son of Presbyterian missionaries Rev Andrew and Margaret Weir. After primary education in mission schools in China he returned to Belfast to continue his studies at Campbell College and Queen's University, where he graduated in experimental physics. After studying theology at New College Edinburgh and Assembly's College Belfast, he was ordained on October 25th, 1944, as a missionary to China, so following in the footsteps of his father who was buried in China after his death there in 1933.
He began his ministry working in the National North-eastern University. However, following communist victories throughout the North-eastern provinces he moved to the church's theological college, where he taught until the withdrawal of foreign missionaries from China in 1950.
Returning to Ireland, Dr Weir ministered in the Letterkenny congregation. He was appointed deputy clerk of the General Assembly in 1962, becoming clerk in 1964. He retired in 1985.
His time as clerk and general secretary was marked by a revision of the administrative system of the Presbyterian Church, a rewriting of the code governing the church and the response of the church to an unparalleled time of civil unrest and violence. Alongside this was a thawing of the relationship between the Catholic and Reformed Churches following Vatican II.
Dr Weir's competence fully matched all these situations and with unsurpassed judgment and skill he met the confusions and contradictions with enthusiasm. With his gifts of leadership and personality he soon became an international church statesman respected by all those he met for his clarity of thought and conviction of faith. His outstanding contribution and also that of Cardinal Cahal Daly was recognised when honorary doctorates were conferred on both men by Queen's University in 1990.
Dr Weir was also responsible for the refurbishment of the chapel in Church House, Belfast, in memory of his mother and father and as a memorial to all the men and women who served in the missions of the Presbyterian Church.
In its tribute on his retirement as clerk, the General Assembly noted how Dr Weir enjoyed the confidence of all parts of the church, endowing him with "persuasive influence, unobtrusively exercised but effective and far reaching. This has done much to strengthen the bonds of union which hold us together and enable us to respect legitimate differences, where such exist, without disruption. Dr Weir has not spared himself". The tribute concluded: "He has striven to the limit of ability and strength."
An only child, Dr Weir was unmarried.
Dr Andrew John (Jack) Weir: born 1919; died, September 2000