Lisbon – It’s a time of mourning in Portugal: Pastor Antonio Pires, President of Portugal’s Evangelical Alliance and past President of its Baptist Convention, died on 7 May following a heart attack. This occurred a few days before his 51st birthday. On 9 May, he was buried in the cemetery of his hometown Queluz near Lisbon. Five-hundred mourners came to pay their final respects.

Pires was very active in missions. Only shortly before his death, he had visited a mission project in the West African state of Guinea-Bissau along with youth from his 200-member congregation in Queluz. He was also very active within the European Baptist Federation (EBF) and European Baptist Mission (EBM). He was a member of the Executive of the EBF’s Youth Committee from 1988 to 1991. From 1993 to 1999 he served as an EBM-missionary in Mozambique. He also repeatedly served in leadership positions within the Portuguese Convention. He was Executive Secretary of its youth programme from 1984 to 1990. He served for two terms as the Convention’s President from 2002 to 2008.

Pires was born in the capital of Angola: Luanda. There he grew up and gave his life to Christ. After Angola received its independence from Portugal in 1974, Pires moved as a 14-year-old with his family to Portugal. There he heard the call to serve full-time as a Baptist pastor and studied at Baptist Theological Seminary in Queluz. He worked with many other immigrants from former Portuguese colonies such as Angola and Mozambique; later also with new arrivals from Ukraine and Moldova. He was ordained pastor of the congregation in Vale de Amoreira since 1986; in September 1999 he transferred to the one in Queluz. Antonio Pires leaves behind his wife Isabel, two adult sons and a 15-year-old daughter.

The EBF’s General-Secretary, Tony Peck (Prague), expressed sincere condolences in a letter addressed to the Convention. He recalled the EBF had held its Council near Lisbon three years ago and that Pires had cooperated eagerly in its preparation: ‘Antonio was a committed disciple of Jesus Christ and had a wide vision of God's Kingdom.’ This resulted from his experiences in foreign mission. He had ‘worked hard to integrate’ the ethnic churches from Ukraine and Moldova. ‘Antonio was a fine and wise leader of Portuguese Baptists and a good friend to many of us.’

Portugal’s Baptist Convention consists of 71 congregations with a membership of 4.700.