Donald Nestor

The Rt Revd Donald Patrick Nestor (1938 - 2003) was a suffragan bishop in Lesotho a diocese in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa from 1979. In 1992 he returned to England to serve as an assistant bishop in the Diocese of Blackburn and laterin the Durham.

Nestor was well-loved in Lesotho in part because of his of gentle pastoral manner. Lesotho is a very mountainous country and many of mission stations and settlements he served were accessible only on horseback, causing him to travel great distances that way. Nestor became fluent in Sesotho and offered encouragement and hope to his parishioners through his teaching. People of all races and faiths welcomed him wherever he went.

Early life and education

Nestor was born at Halifax, West Yorkshire on 6 October 1938. He did his high schooling at the grammar school in Halifax amd went from there to Exeter College, Oxford, where he studied theology. He completed his training for the priesthood at The Queen's College, Birmingham.

Clerical work

In 1965 he was a curate at Woodkirk for three years, after which he spent four more years in that capacity at Forton. In 1972 he went to Africa where he was chaplain at the universities of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland in the period between 1972 and 1979.

From 1974 onwards Nestor trained new priests in Lesotho. He was elected to the suffragan bishopric in 1979.

His work was completed in southern Africa in 1992 and he returned to England, where the Bishop of Blackburn invited him to become vicar of Bretherton and to act as an assistant bishop in that diocese. He served as the diocesan ecumenical officer, using his experience of working with African churches to good effect.

In 2001 Nestor joined the monastic Society of the Sacred Mission in Durham, where he also acted as an assistant bishop.

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