A well known church publication in Canada has initiated a project in honour of the late Ted Friesen of Altona.

The Canadian Mennonite along with the Friesen family have jointly launched the Ted Friesen Legacy Fund to recognize the contributions he made toward the establishment of the publication over six decades ago. The fund would help financially stabilize the national publication during an uncertain time of changing denominational structures, and at the same time, honour its first publisher who passed away in February of this year at the age of 95.

To help establish the initiative, the Ted Friesen family has contributed a $50,000 gift as seed money for the fund, with the hope that other supporters will follow suit with gifts of their own.

"Ted was very much a visionary and was involved in the creative startups of various projects including this publication that is now 63 years old," said Dick Benner, editor of the Canadian Mennonite magazine.

The publication had a lot of difficulty gaining traction among readers during its infancy in the 1950s, but Friesen was committed to the project and stuck with it despite the fact the Canadian Mennonite was losing money every year.

"He felt strongly about the need to have this publication out there to rally the different Mennonite groups around our core beliefs and what we can contribute to society. He was unusual for his times and that's why we thought it was proper and good to honour him," said Benner.

In a recent editorial piece written in the Canadian Mennonite, Benner suggested that, if he were alive today, Ted Friesen would have been at the forefront in providing leadership to the religious and cultural changes that Mennonite Church Canada is currently dealing with.

"We are seeing our denominational centre, Mennonite Church Canada, diminished in favour of new regional structures. Denominational loyalty, so effectively rallied by Friesen more than a half-century ago, is on the wane. He would likely look to the national publication as his platform and microphone to give direction and wisdom. He would give place to creative thinking and new ways of looking at things."

Benner says the Canadian Mennonite has tried its best to appeal to the various Mennonite communities across Canada which reflects the kind of person Ted Friesen was.

"He had a broad based faith. Sometimes the public view of our denomination is that we can be closed and judgemental of others. That was not Ted Friesen. He was a very tolerant and broad minded person, which is a characteristic that we want reflected in the publication moving forward into the future."