About us

Rev Dr Stewart Gillan

Born in Newfoundland and raised in Nova Scotia, Canada, Stewart’s first ministry was in South Africa from 1986–98 – a pivotal period from the final years of apartheid, through the time of transition to democratic government, and the first years of a new South Africa. He served as parish minster in the townships of Gauteng and partnered with the South African Council of Churches and Institute for Contextual Theology. His final two years saw him working with the Commission of the Restitution of Land Rights as a researcher, following doctoral work at the University of Edinburgh, whose field work was done with communities that had been forcibly removed from ancestral land under apartheid. Upon his return to Toronto, he became the Executive Direction of the Churches’ Council on Theological Education in Canada, 1999–2004.

In Scotland since 2004, Stewart served as parish minister of St Michael’s Parish Church, Linlithgow (2004–18) and St John’s Renfield, in Kelvindale, Glasgow (2018–22) – sharing married life throughout with Sarah Ormerod Gillan, Head of Music at Kelvinside Academy, and their children Imogen and Alexander.

It was on a visit of the Middle East Committee of the then World Mission Council in October 2007 that he first felt the stirrings of a call to the ministry of the Church in Israel and Palestine. He took up the post of Minister of St Andrew’s Jerusalem & Tiberias and Mission Partner Jerusalem in December 2022, and shares ministry with the Rev Muriel Pearson, seeking prayerfully to serve our congregations and partner with Church, Interfaith and Human Rights organisations on both sides of the wall on the long walk towards a just and lasting peace in the Holy Land. In this, Stewart seeks to bring together the spiritual and strategic dimensions of peace work with people who have been working for justice and peace in God’s name all of their lives.