Christopher Mayor (1928-2024) encountered MRA (now Initiatives of Change) through his mother, a professional actress who co-opted young Chris into some early MRA productions which she staged at her Bryant’s Playhouse in Sydney. Hospitalised with a serious heart problem at 15, Chris felt prompted ‘to let God run his life’. With this faith, at the age of 21 he resigned his job with Australian United Press to serve full-time with Moral Re-Armament. He never stopped writing. In 1950, when 50 senior Japanese flew to Europe on a mission of reconciliation, he interviewed the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on their plan to establish a peace memorial on the site of the atomic bombing.
Chris and Janet (married 1958) spent most of the next two decades in Asia, representing and facilitating the work of MRA in Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Japan and India. In 1961 they were asked by Rajmohan Gandhi to support his ‘March across the nation’, and in 1964 to be joint editor of Gandhi’s weekly newsmagazine Himmat.
Returning to Australia in 1970 with two small daughters (Sarah and Ali), the Mayors hosted the MRA Australia-Pacific centre in Melbourne. In the following decades, Chris had a central role in the development of communications, finance, investment and property for the movement. He served as a director on the Council of Management and was Company Secretary for over 20 years, creating structures and networks to financially support its volunteers and programs.
Chris remained a global player through MRA/IofC, part of a small innovative team who facilitated collective leadership through the 1980s and 1990s through organising a series of International Global Consultations and serving on an MRA International Coordination Group, forerunner of today’s International Council, launched in 1998.
