In 2014 Anglican bishop Sir David Moxon was appointed a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to the Anglican Church.
Growing up Sir David was educated at Freyberg High School and was head boy in his final year. He attended Massey University and University of Canterbury to complete Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees, before studying theology at the University of Oxford Honours School, completing a second Master’s Degree.
Sir David was ordained as a priest in 1979 and was appointed Director of Theological Education by Extension for the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia in 1987. In 1993, he became the Bishop of Waikato.
In 2006, he was appointed the Archbishop of the New Zealand Dioceses and in 2008, a primate of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and the Pacific, as part of New Zealand’s new tripartite model of Anglican episcopacy.
Sir David was appointed as the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Representative to the Holy See in Rome in 2013. As Director of the Anglican Centre in Rome Sir David’s role focused on growing partnerships between faiths around key world issues, including modern slavery and human trafficking, refugee ministry and climate change. He continued in this role until mid 2017 when he returned to New Zealand to retire.
Retirement hasn’t slowed Sir David down, he is co-chair of the International Walking Together Foundation advisory committee, which seeks to fund Catholic and Anglican Bishop partnerships for aid, development, justice and peace globally.
His social and environmental interests see him on the Ngati Haua Mahi Trust, patron of the Faith Community Nurses Association, a Pihopa Awahina (honorary assistant) Bishop of the Māori Bishopric area of Te Manawa o te Wheke, a board member of a number of educational institutions and a regional Chaplain with the Order of St John.
Sir David was awarded Honorary Doctorates by Massey University (2014) and the University of Waikato (2016). In 2017, he was awarded the Lambeth Cross for Ecumenism by the Archbishop of Canterbury.