Obituary: Rev Dr Peter Toon - 1939 – 2009

April 26th, 2009

Peter, son of Thomas Arthur and Hilda Toon, was born in Yorkshire, England, soon after the start of World War II. After him came Paul, David and Christine. He attended Hemsworth Grammar School, Cliff College, Sheffield; King’s College, London; The University of Liverpool and Christ Church, Oxford University. He held three Masters’ degrees and a Doctor of Philosophy degree from Oxford.

He was married to Vita for forty-seven years and they have one daughter, Deborah, who lives in California, and is married to Michael, a Naval Officer. Vita is a graduate of London and Oxford Universities, while Deborah is a graduate of Vanderbilt University in Nashville and the University of Texas at Austin.

After teaching religious studies in a College, Peter was ordained in the Church of England in 1973 in the Diocese of Liverpool. Since then he has served in parishes in both England and the U.S.A. and also as a theologian in theological houses in the U.S.A. and in England. In the last decade of his working life, he served the Prayer Book Society of the U.S.A. as its President and C.E.O.

Peter wrote and had published over twenty-five books, together with booklets, essays, articles. He also wrote many opinion pieces for the web. He edited Home Words in England from 1985-2001 and The Mandate in the U.S.A. from 1995 to 2008. He was much committed to The Anglican Way as Reformed Catholicism, and to the importance of the historical Formularies—Articles, BCP and Ordinal. The woes of the Anglican Communion in recent days much distressed him.

As he died on Saturday, April 25th in San Diego, and as virtually all Vita’s and Peter’s relatives and friends are thousands of miles away, there was no public funeral in California, only a service for the family based on the classic BCP. It is hoped that his remains may be interred in the family grave in Yorkshire.

The address for Vita and Deborah in CA is:

2522 Boundary Street
San Diego, CA 92104,
+1-619-284-1432


I HEARD a voice from heaven, saying unto me, Write, From henceforth blessed are the dead which die in the Lord: even so saith the Spirit: for they rest from their labours.

Into thy hands, O merciful Saviour, we commend the soul of thy servant, Peter, now departed from the body. Acknowledge, we humbly beseech thee, a sheep of thine own fold, a lamb of thine own flock, a sinner of thine own
redeeming. Receive him into the arms of thy mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the Saints in light. Who livest and reignest, world without end. Amen,

Rest eternal grant unto him O Lord, And let light perpetual shine upon him. May he rest in peace. Amen

*****

ADDITIONAL NOTE from Fr. Tony Noble

Peter died at 8.50 pm on St Mark's day here in San Diego.

I have been visiting him each day this week, & it has been a privilege to minister to him, and to see his faith. On Wednesday I administered Holy Communion & anointed him, with the family present. I was with him 3 hours today - a wonderful time of prayer. I said the Final Prayers of Commendation - & his last words to me were: Amen. Alleuia.

Peter's request was that his body be given for medical research. His instructions were that there was to be no public funeral, & that the BCP Burial Office be said at home with his body present. I did this at 9.30 pm tonight - surely the latest time this Service has ever been celebrated.

The Prayer Book Society will be arranging a memorial Service in All Saints' Church, San Diego some time in the future.

*****

FROM THE PRAYER BOOK SOCIETY USA

The Death of Dr. Peter Toon
Saturday, April 25, 2009

Dr. Peter Toon, priest and theologian, passed away on the evening of the feast of St Mark the Evangelist, in San Diego, California, where he and his wife have resided for the last months. He will be sorely missed by all those who love the Anglican Way. Dr. Toon has been, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the most vocal and prolific defender of the theology of the Anglican Reformation and the traditional Book of Common Prayer over the last decades. The absence of his voice on so many issues facing the church today will be an irreparable loss. Clarity of mind, depth of knowledge, and vigor of presentation marked his work, making his arguments both distinctive and convincing. An evangelist like St Mark, he was a lion of the faith.

During the last year, Dr. Toon has been suffering from a rare disease called amyloidosis. Diagnosed last spring, he underwent various treatments that were intended to slow the progress of the disease. Sadly, the disease was stronger than the medications, and we have lost him sooner than was hoped.

At the end Dr. Toon was attended by Fr Tony Noble, rector of All Saints' Episcopal Church, San Diego. Over the last weeks they have prayed together with the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, and his final words to Fr Noble were to the praise of God who he has served and loved so well. In his last hours, Fr Noble prayed with Dr. Toon the commendatory prayer.

O Almighty God, with whom do live the spirits of just men made perfect, after they are delivered from their earthly prisons: We humbly commend the soul of this thy servant,our dear brother, into thy hands, as into the hands of a faithful Creator, and most merciful Saviour; most humbly beseeching thee that it may be precious in they sight. Wash it, we pray thee, in the blood of that immaculate Lamb, that was slain to take away the sins of the world; that whatsoever defilements it may have contracted in the midst of this miserable and naughty world, through the lusts of the flesh or the wiles of Satan, being purged and done away, it may be presented pure and without spot before thee. And teach us who survive, in this and other like daily spectacles of mortality, to see how frail and uncertain our own condition is; and so to number our days, that we may seriously apply our hearts to that holy and heavenly wisdom, whilst we live here, which may in the end bring us to life everlasting, through the merits of Jesus Christ, thine only Son our Lord. Amen.

May light perpetual shine up on Dr. Toon. May the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace.

Dr. Roberta Bayer
The Prayer Book Society of the United States of America

The Prayer Book Society will hold a memorial service at All Saints' Episcopal Church, San Diego, California, at a future date.

*****

Many of Peter Toon's books can be read in electronic format here:
http://www.anglicanbooksrevitalized.us/Peter_Toons_Books_Online/petertoonbooks.htm

*****

From: Auburn Traycik, Editor - The Christian Challenge
http://www.challengeonline.org
April 27, 2009

Dear Friends:

Shortly before midnight Saturday night, we were deeply saddened to learn that the Rev. Dr. Peter Toon - President Emeritus of the Prayer Book Society of the USA, scholar, theologian, prolific author and commentator on Anglican affairs - had passed away at his residence in San Diego, California, following a brave battle with a rare auto-immune disease, amyloidosis.

Word of this painful loss to faithful Anglicans came from our longtime friend, the Rev. Tony Noble, the Australian-born, Anglo-Catholic rector of All Saints', San Diego; he had been devotedly ministering to the English-born Dr. Toon and his wife since the Toons moved a few months ago to San Diego, where the couple's daughter and her (military) husband are based. Fr. Noble and we were frequently in touch about Dr. Toon's condition recently, especially over the last week, in part so I could relay reports to concerned fellow directors of the Prayer Book Society, whose mission Dr. Toon had served and advanced so tirelessly and peerlessly in a number of years past.

"Tireless and peerless" might be a good way to describe Dr. Toon himself and all that he did or tried to do in support of the historic faith and liturgy. He leaves behind an incredible body of work that will doubtless inform generations of Anglicans to come. And while one might disagree with him on some issues or at some times - or if one is a liberal revisionist, at almost all times. - anyone who really knew him could not doubt that he spoke or acted out of sincere conviction and a deeply devoted concern for the Church that was never self-serving. He was never afraid, for example, to raise a question or address an issue that challenged or discomfited his own co-religionists.

And from our discussions with Fr. Noble, as well as the way Dr. Toon carried on in his thoughtful writing up until the last, it became apparent that Peter, having demonstrated how to live a life of vigorous and profound service to the Gospel, the Kingdom, and the Anglican Way, showed in his last days how to die in accordance with the same. He fought his disease, to be sure, suffering stoicly through the grueling chemo-type treatment for it. But he seemed to face the specter of his looming exit from earthly life with acceptance, courage, faith, and expectation.

Fr. Noble reported that on the final day of Peter's life, he spent "a wonderful three hours" at the Toon home. Recorded English hymns were played - with Peter joining in or humming from his sickbed - and psalms and prayers were read. After a hospice nurse came to respond to Peter's own brave request that the oxygen he was receiving be discontinued, "I asked him if he would like me to read the final commendatory prayers, the prayers of commending the soul to God," Fr. Noble told us. "He said yes, but asked that it be just the two of us. It was very emotional, because he was quite alert and awake as I said those prayers, and joined in [them] as best he could. At the end of the final commendation...Peter's last words...were, 'Amen. Alleluia.' And then he said to me, 'Goodbye...See you on another shore.'"

Dr. Toon died later the same day.

Other tributes to Dr. Toon can be found, and are being received for posting on, the Prayer Book Society weblog, http://pbs1928.blogspot.com/

Further coverage will doubtless be forthcoming from (inter alia) the Society's magazine, Mandate.

*****

From Rev. Ed Hird
Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Dr Peter Toon came many times to Canada. As he was living in Seattle and attending St Lukes' Seattle with the Rev. Dr John Roddam, Dr Toon was able to visit a number of times to Vancouver BC. I remember once when Dr Toon was about to speak at St John's Shaughnessy to the faithful embattled Anglicans in BC. Dr. JI Packer introduced him, saying how much he was looking forward to hear Dr. Toon, and ended by saying in childlike joy and a twinkle in his eye: 'goody'. ;)

I also remember meeting Dr. Toon a number of times at the AMiA Conferences, which shows his true catholicity in embracing faithful Anglicans from different streams. While Dr. Toon 'enjoyed' a good debate, there was an overall graciousness and breadth to Dr. Toon that I fondly remember. His work on the recent 'Anglican Prayer Book', sponsored by AMiA and used now by many, is a good example of that graciousness and scholarship.

Ed Hird+


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