[ACNS] The Colleges and Universities of the Anglican Communion (CUAC) network have announced that their second Distinguished Fellowship has been awarded to the Revd Dr Spurgeon Maher, chaplain of Madras Christian College in Chennai, India. Dr Maher was inducted to the fellowship in his college’s Bishop Heber Chapel on Sunday, where he was joined by his friends and family, and members of his Tamil-speaking congregation; as well as members of the CUAC network, who were in Chennai for their ninth international triennial conference, which was taking place at the college.

Dr Maher has been chaplain of Madras Christian College since 2000; and in his time there he has made the college’s Bishop Heber Chapel “a place of vital worship, increasing Sunday worship from one to five services and developing dynamic student choirs and music,” CUAC said.

“As a pastor and teacher of Christian doctrine, Indian philosophy and comparative religions he formed a generation of students on their paths of spiritual discovery.”

Dr Maher has served as a trustee of CUAC for over eight years, and oversaw the many colleges of the Indian Chapter, “which he knew intimately, connecting them with periodic chapter gatherings and reaching out to a flock of fellow chaplains across India whom he always enabled and supported,” CUAC said.

In 2012, to mark the 125th anniversary of Madras Christian College and the 50th anniversary of England’s Canterbury Christ Church University, Dr Maher undertook an exchange with Canterbury’s chaplain, the Revd Dr Jeremy Law. Last year, Dr Law became the first person to be inducted as a CUAC distinguished fellow.

Dr Maher’s certificate of induction, signed by the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby in his role as patron of CUAC, was presented to him by CUAC president, the Revd Dr Robert Derrenbacker; and general secretary, the Revd Canon James G Callaway.

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