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spent in Oxford, first at New College, then at Keble College, where for 22 years
as Chaplain he influenced an entire generation of students, many of whom be-
came life-long friends.
Geoffrey’s love for the Oriental Churches was perhaps fortified by a re-
treat he took early in his ministry, at the Coptic monastery of St Macarius the
Great in Egypt. He would frequently return to this place, and to many other
holy and monastic centres of Eastern Christianity, both for his own prayerful
sustenance, as well as to introduce groups of pilgrims to the spiritual riches of
the Orthodox and Oriental traditions. Geoffrey felt a natural affinity for those
ancient Churches which were "on the fringe of, or beyond, the Eastern Roman
Empire": the Churches of Egypt, Armenia, Ethiopia, Syria and the Malabar
Coast of India. Perhaps he saw in the paths of the history of these Churches, as
distinct from the great trunk highways of Rome and Byzantium, a parallel to
Anglicanism, with its origins at the other edge of the Roman Empire, on the
Atlantic Island of Great Britain.
He was a keen student of all the historical, political and cultural factors
that led to divisions between the Oriental and other Churches, divisions which
were among the most ancient in the Christian world. It was therefore a natural
choice for Archbishop Rowan Williams to appoint Bishop Geoffrey to be the
chairman of the Anglican-Oriental Orthodox International Commission
(AOOIC) in 2001, which would begin substantial work on Christology. This
work of the Commission began with great promise but was paused for a decade
as some of the Oriental partners were uneasy about decisions made by some
Anglican Churches. During the 10 year hiatus Bishop Geoffrey worked quietly
and tirelessly to maintain bonds of friendship and to strengthen the trust
which enabled the formal dialogue to resume again 2013.
It was a time when many in the Church of England would have pre-
ferred to pursue a more practical ecumenism rather than to address the doc-
trinal disputes at the heart of Christian divisions. Nevertheless, Bishop Geof-
frey maintained that the ancient differences of understanding about the perfect
union of divinity and of humanity in Christ the Incarnate Word could not be
th
ignored. The 5 century arguments, while seemingly remote from the 21 cen-
st
tury, needed to be overcome, as they are about affirming how God gave himself
completely into our human condition, and that in Jesus we meet no less that
God Incarnate, and that this is the wonderful reality at the heart of Christian
faith. He maintained vigorously that the modern world is in danger of thinking
of God as remote, distant and uninvolved. But God does not stand aside from
his creation, but, in the words of the Lady Julian of Norwich, “comes down to

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