Moderator-elect is to assume office tonight

The Moderator-elect of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, the Rev Dr John Lockington, will assume office tonight at the opening of the church's General Assembly. He succeeds the Rt Rev Dr John Dixon, whose year in office ends tonight.

Dr Lockington, who is a member of the Orange Order, was elected to the moderatorship last February when he received 10 votes from the 21 presbyteries taking part in the election.

He is 54 and from the Shankill Road in Belfast. His father was a shipyard worker and not particularly religious, but his mother was a committed Christian.

It was through her influence that he became a regular attender at Bethany Presbyterian Church on Agnes Street.

He studied history, politics and anthropology at Queen's University Belfast, training as a minister at Union Theological College, Belfast. He was ordained in 1969. Since then he has served at Ballysillan in Belfast, Ballyroney in Co Down, Armagh in 1981, and Gardenmore, Larne, Co Antrim since 1989.

He and his wife, Norma, are married 29 years and have three children. Stephen is an assistant minister at Ebrington, in Derry, while their two daughters, Cathryn and Susan, are student teachers in Scotland.

A committed Linfield supporter and stamp collector, Dr Lockington joined the Orange Order when he was a boy. However, he said his first loyalty was to Jesus Christ, then, under that commitment, to his church. "Loyalty to the Order comes well down the list behind those things," he said.

He would emphasise the positive aspects of the Order, which he sees as a religious organisation in which people have come together to show and affirm their particular faith. It stands for the good things involved in Protestantism, he said, and part of that Protestantism was a statement of one's own commitment.

He felt that perhaps it was possible, particularly where Roman Catholicism was concerned, that this could be put in better language, but wondered whether some people might find it offensive no matter what language it was put in.

Where he is concerned, Orangeism is about helping people to live the sort of life God would want them to live. Qualifications for membership were very high, he felt. That people did not live up to them was a fact of life, he said.

He was very concerned about the situation at Drumcree. Orangemen there should obey the law, he said. The Parades Commission was set up by law and was to be honoured even when people were not happy with its decisions, he added.