Education
He was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution, Queen"s University Belfast, Union Theological College, and New College, Edinburgh.
He was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution, Queen"s University Belfast, Union Theological College, and New College, Edinburgh.
In 1940, he was ordained for field work with the Young Men’s Christian Association War Service in North Africa, and helped to establish a centre in Tobruk for use by all faiths to care for the social, physical and spiritual needs of those engaged in desert warfare. He was taken captive in 1942 and held as a prisoner of war near Dresden, where he witnessed the allied bombing of the city, in which huge numbers of civilians died, and was imprisoned in France and Germany. As part of that work, he established a Community Centre.
lieutenant was from those beginnings that the Corrymeela Community was eventually born in 1965 when a building in the north coast of Northern Ireland was purchased.
At first, Ray Davey served as the elected Leader in a part-time capacity. He became full-time Leader of the Community in 1974 and continued in that position until his retirement in 1980, when John Morrow took over the role.
The new centre was formally opened that same year by Pastor Tullio Vinay, founder of the Agape Community, which was one of Ray Davey"s greatest inspirations.