Canon Paul Oestreicher (right) with Bruce Kent. Image by CND.

In the Queen’s Platinum Birthday Honours List, Canon Paul Oestreicher was awarded an OBE for peace, human rights, reconciliation, and the Church. Upon receiving the award he wrote

“A state award – I had already received a German one – is only acceptable as an affirmation of these values and of all those who have worked with me to embody them. PARAMOUNT among them is the priest, prophet and my role model BRUCE KENT who has left us, but leaves his indefatigable spirit, his joyful warmth, his dedication to peace, his passion for justice and his humble determination to leave the world a better place. In Yiddish, he was a Mensch – a true human being.”

From 1985 to 1997, Dr Oestreicher was Canon Residentiary and Director of the International Centre for Reconciliation at Coventry Cathedral. He delivered the Lord Mayor’s Peace Lecture among his many other activities in the City of Peace and Reconciliation. After his retirement in 1998 he continued to work at Coventry Cathedral in an advisory capacity.

Canon Oestreicher is a CND vice-president, as well as a political scientist, Anglican priest, and former Chair of Amnesty International UK. Paul was a founding member of the Movement for the Ordination of Women.

He was active in the Christian Peace Conference and was heavily involved in the anti-apartheid movement. A lifelong pacifist, Oestreicher was co-founder of the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship in New Zealand.