PhD success

Published on 24th September 2009

Rev Won Sang Lee, Washington DC, has just been awarded the degree of PhD by the University of Wales in the field of pastoral theology for his research . His chosen subject was:
A critical exploration and conversation across the centuries of pastoral leadership principles in John Chrysostom’s Antioch and Constantinople and Won Sang Lee’s Washington’s Korean Central Presbyterian Church.
This research interacts with a number of leading pastoral theologians and Patristic scholars. In the dissertation, Rev Lee aims initially to describe and then reflect on his own church ministry in the Korean Central Presbyterian Church( KCPC) in Vienna, Virginia near Washington DC over a period of 27 years.  His case study aims to identify and discuss four critical key principles of pastoral leadership which he developed during this ministry.
The case study is then followed up with reference to other possible models, especially the model adopted by the Emerging Churches. The latter attempts to remove any trace of a hierarchical approach to pastoral leadership and encourages maximum expressions of democracy and participation in church government. Even here, Rev Lee suggested that his four pastoral leadership principles have relevance to such churches.
He then enters into critical conversation with John Chrysostom (347-407A.D) who excercised significant and powerful ministries in both Antioch and Constantinople. Acknowledging the ‘gaps’ between his own and Chrysostom’s pastoral situations, he argues for genuine similarities which make the comparison and conversation meaningful. After providing an outline of Chrysostom’s life and work, Rev Lee majored on his early document “On the Priesthood” and also a sample of his New testament homilies in order to identify and discuss his pastoral leadership principles. He submits that there is substantial agreement between their pastoral leadership principles.
The dissertation closes with an extended critical comparison of these principles and ways in which these are relevant for Church leaders today.
The supervisor was Dr Eryl Davies (WEST), the internal examiner Andreas Andreopouos (University of Wales, Lampeter) and the external examiner was Dr David Bernard McLoughlin of Newman University College, Birmingham.