Frank Engel

Reverend Dr. Frank Engel one of Australia's postwar ecumenical leaders, liked the irony of his first visit to Rome, in the Cold War days of 1956. Engel, then general secretary of the Australian Student Christian Movement, shared a cabin on the ship with Noel Counihan, an artist and a Marxist. It was the Marxist who introduced the Christian to the glories of the Eternal City.

Engel wrote later to his family, telling how he and Counihan had stood admiring the Sistine Chapel together and how Counihan "was tickled by the fact that an Australian communist was showing a Presbyterian minister Rome's great works of Christian art".

It was vintage Engel, who has died at 94, in 2006, after a life dedicated to demolishing walls others considered unchallengeable, building relationships many thought impossible and changing social attitudes most believed were set in concrete.

Born in Pusan, Korea, to a German father and an Australian mother who between them would rack up 85 years of missionary service, young Frank was 14 when he arrived in Melbourne to attend Scotch College. He went on to Melbourne University, where the Student Christian Movement stirred his enthusiasm for fostering relationships between people of different backgrounds.

After postgraduate work in theology, Engel joined the staff of the Student Christian Movement as a travelling secretary. In 1941 he married Mary Morgan, his partner until her death in 1983. They crossed the Tasman, where he spent three years as general secretary of the New Zealand movement. Returning in 1943, he was ordained and became minister of Hawthorn Presbyterian Church in South Australia.

The ecumenical movement and ministry with students remained close to his heart. In 1949 he was appointed general secretary of the Australian Student Christian Movement. The World Student Christian Federation, appreciating his vision and people skills as well as his Korean background, recruited him for three years as its secretary for East Asia.

From 1962, Engel's leadership had a more direct impact on the nation's churches. He headed the National Missionary Council, which was about to become an arm of the Australian Council of Churches, and in 1969 was appointed general secretary of the council.

Interchurch relations grew apace in those years. Orthodox churches were becoming more visible in Australia. Church union between Methodists, Congregationalists and Presbyterians was on the horizon. The Second Vatican Council had given Catholics the green light to be involved ecumenically, and Engel helped set up two mechanisms to take the co-operation forward: a joint working group between the council and the Catholic Church, and Action for World Development.

Engel stepped well beyond the church's front door. He advised the council's member churches on their involvement with indigenous Australians. He was a good listener, and Aboriginal people liked and trusted him. He fought for their rights in the 1967 referendum, which ended constitutional discrimination against Aborigines and allowed them to be counted in the census. Foreshadowing the later political debate, he published influential policy proposals on Land Rights of Australian Aborigines (1965) and Turning Land into Hope (1968).

At one point he threatened to resign from the council unless an indigenous candidate he had urged to apply for a staff position was appointed. His man got the job.

He detested racial discrimination in all forms. He opposed tours by the whites-only South African rugby team, pressed for a more open immigration policy and supported the World Council of Churches' controversial program to combat racism.

Engel worked to change Australia's parochialism, not least in matters religious. He served on the central committee of the world council (1961-68) and the general committee of the Christian Conference of Asia (1970-77). To give international solidarity a hands-on expression, he helped establish the Overseas Service Bureau, enabling Australian volunteers to contribute their skills to the development of neighbouring countries in Asia and the Pacific.

A leader who never sought power for himself, Engel was easy to underestimate. People knew him as a quiet, gentle man who listened carefully, read widely, treated critics graciously, enjoyed art and music and said his prayers. But he was remarkably tough, and once convinced of the rightness of a course of action, would hold to it tenaciously.

After retiring in 1975, he earned a doctorate in theology and published two volumes on the history of the ecumenical movement in Australia.

In 1981 he returned to his first love, ministry among students, and his old college - Ormond, at Melbourne University - as chaplain. He was glad to find that at 70 he could still relate well to undergraduates a third his age. In 1992 he returned to his home in Roseville, Sydney, to continue writing and enjoying the city's cultural life with family and friends.

He leaves a son, Graham Engel and daughter Rosemary Engel.