Archbishop Leon
The former Archbishop Primate of the Nicene Catholic Apostolic Church (Autocephalous Catholic Church of Antioch) was His Grace the Most Reverend Leon Roger Hunt, who retired from ecclesiastical office on May 23, 2019 to be succeeded as Presiding Bishop of the Nicene Catholic Apostolic Church by the Most Reverend Michael Barnard, Bishop of St. Garmon, and then by the current Presiding Bishop the Most Reverend John Garner, Bishop of East Anglia, the current Presiding Bishop of the Church.
Archbishop Leon Roger, who is now styled Archbishop Primate Emeritus, received a Grammar School education in London, U.K., during which time he was also privately tutored in philosophy and comparative religion by Burmese diplomat U Maung Maung Ji, former political secretary to Mahatma Gandhi and associate of Nehru and U Thant. In later studies the archbishop specialized in theology, biblical Hebrew, classical Greek and Latin. He holds a research doctorate in theology and an honorary doctorate in divinity. His interest in psychology led him to London psychotherapist Buntie Wills, disciple of Carl Jung’s colleague Toni Sussman. He studied Jungian psychology with Buntie for six years. Leon Roger was ordained to priesthood on 12 June, 1982, in U.S.A., and consecrated to the episcopate on 27 November, 2010, in U.K. The Archbishop's Apostolic lineage includes succession from Churches of both the East and the West: including succession from the Coptic Orthodox Church of Ethiopia, from the Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church, from the Russian Orthodox Church, from the Old Calendarist Bishops of ROCOR and from the Old Catholic Church of Holland.
Leon Roger Hunt lived in U.S.A. from 1979 to 1989, where he served as Senior Chaplain of Sanctuary House, a Healing Home run by the Rev. Robert Williams McKewin, Executive Director of Lordsway Incorporated, and Rector of the Episcopal Church of St. Andrew in South St. Paul, Minnesota. As Chaplain of Sanctuary House he was also Christian Counsellor to the emotionally and mentally disturbed residents thereof.
Archbishop Leon Roger is a member of the Ecumenical Council of the Lutheran Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, and Superior General of the Society of the Christian Life. He is a Knight Grand Cross of St. Paul, and Lieutenant Grand Cross of the Order of St. Paul for the United Kingdom. The Order of St. Paul itself was officially constituted with the agreement and blessing of His Beatitude Ignatius IV, Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch, and is under the protection of the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, the Oriental and Orthodox Churches and the Militia Sancti Pauli. The initial and avowed purpose of the Order of St. Paul was 'to protect the Christians of Syria'; but during past years its purpose has been pragmatically re-defined as 'to protect Christians and the Christian Faith'. In the Spring of 2018, with the approbation of the Grand Master of the Order of St. Paul, Archbishop Leon Roger inaugurated the Religious and Chivalric Order of St. Philip of Hierapolis, an ecumenical Order of Knighthood which continues in the tradition of the Sovereign Order of St. Paul and the blessed inspiration of Patriarch Ignatius IV of Antioch.
Archbishop Leon Roger is a theologian and historian. He is the author of translations from the works of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, and has published extensive studies on liturgical matters, on the Mediaeval Pattern of the Spiritual Life and on the religious elements inherent in Mediaeval Chivalric Tradition.
