Moderators of The United Church of Canada

Moderators Of The United Church Of Canada

The Moderator of the United Church of Canada is the presiding leader of the United Church of Canada, Canada's largest Protestant denomination. The church is highly decentralized and non-dogmatic and the moderator has only limited power. Duties of the moderator include:

• giving leadership to the church, "quickening in the hearts of the people a sense of God as revealed in Christ, and heartening and strengthening the whole United Church".
• visiting pastoral charges across the country, "giving sympathetic guidance and counsel in all its affairs".
• being the primary spokesperson for the United Church
• presiding at the meetings of the United Church's highest "court", the triannual General Council, and chairing meetings of the General Council's Executive and Sub-Executive.

Moderators are elected at each General Council; their term of office is therefore defined by the length of time between General Councils. When the United Church of Canada was founded in 1925, General Councils were biannual, giving each moderator a two-year term of office. At the 1994 General Council, the commissioners voted to make General Councils triannual, thus increasing the moderator's term to three years.

Although most moderators have been ordained ministers, this is not a requirement of office—to date, four have been lay persons. If the moderator is ordained, he or she is styled the "Right Reverend" while in office, and the "Very Reverend" after their retirement.

The current moderator is Gary Paterson.