Jenan Taylor
11 March 2025
The curries were rich, hot and plentiful when Holy Trinity Hampton Park’s diverse congregation farewelled its former vicar, and parishioners celebrated his social justice ministry, and how it strengthened their faith.
Dozens of Holy Trinity’s current and past members packed the church in early February to honour Reverend Dr Ian Savage’s contributions to the local community and to refugees before he relocated to England.
Dr Savage decided to move back to Ely near Cambridge this year to be closer to family, after the death of his wife Frances in 2022.
Many who’d attended Holy Trinity during Dr Savage’s leadership from 2000 to 2019 recalled his great compassion for people who struggled, and the influence of this in his ministry.
This included his efforts to help those who were making their way through the morass of seeking asylum.
Former United Nations staffer Jessica Phillips said Dr Savage’s refugee advocacy had played a role in bettering her understanding of the many issues surrounding displaced people.
A church member since infancy, Ms Phillips had often observed how Dr Savage would encourage parishioners to think more deeply about accepting people for who they were.
“There were so many mixed messages about refugee communities. On the one hand people were saying they were skipping queues or taking jobs or handouts,” Ms Phillips said.
“It was refreshing when Ian brought this other narrative that these people were not a threat and needed help. It made me feel more compassion towards those communities that I might not have because of those negative narratives that were around.”
Ms Phillips believed this instilled in her the importance of living and upholding Christian values, especially in how she treated others, and might have influenced her own career path.
Church committee member Susan Rose said Dr Savage had been there for every one of the congregants and made himself available to anybody else who needed him.
He organised an array of community initiatives, including local food programs, recreation outings for young children whose parents couldn’t afford to take them out, and volunteered with alcohol and drug programs at Prahran Mission.
She said Dr Savage also played a very important role in her faith, and that of her family’s.
“I was an atheist and then when I found my faith, I did the rounds from Assemblies of God to Seventh Day Adventist to try and find a church where I felt that I could fit in,” Mrs Rose said.
“Ian helped guide me into a more comfortable place with my faith. He helped guide me into finding a church because church was never anything that our family had done before then.”
Stephen Jones, who presented Dr Savage with a jar of vegemite as one of the parish’s parting gifts, said the congregation would miss him greatly, as it did his late wife Frances.
After a farewell service overseen by Holy Trinity former locum Reverend Alex Packett, Dr Savage delighted in the massive multicultural feast prepared by the church’s members.
He said he planned to focus on further studies in Ignatian Spiritual Direction when he settled back into life in Cambridgeshire.
A fourth generation cleric in his family, Dr Savage never ever doubted his calling.
“I guess I wanted to go as faraway as possible from home – to Melbourne – to find out what it meant for me and to explore it for myself,” he said.
“My father was a Baptist minister, my grandfather an Anglican priest ordained in Ely, and my younger brother was ordained in Ely too.
“The call to ministry was part of a long, complex family story which is still unfolding!”
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