Prof Gibson, a former long-serving member of the Otago Tertiary Chaplaincy Trust Board, was speaking at an anniversary dinner to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Otago chaplaincy service in 1963.
About 120 people attended the dinner, at Salmond College.
A four-day Aotearoa New Zealand Tertiary Chaplaincy Association national conference devoted to the theme of ''thanksgiving'' is also being held at the college this week.
In a wide-ranging address, Prof Gibson said Otago's successful tertiary chaplaincy was part of a long-standing traditionThis began with the birth, in AD316, in what was now known as Hungary , of St Martin, an ex-Roman army soldier who later became the saintly and much-loved Bishop of Tours.
One of Dunedin's tertiary chaplains, the Rev Greg Hughson, had continued the chaplaincy's long peacemaking tradition when he called for reconciliation, respect and understanding between local Christians and Muslims after the terrorist attacks in New York, in September 2001, Prof Gibson said.
This initiative had led to the formation of the Dunedin Abrahamic Interfaith Group which, 12 years later, continued to foster interfaith peace education. Prof Gibson also emphasised the continuing importance of pastoral care, including in the ''sensational instance'' when Otago chaplains, ecumenical and Catholic, had been required to counsel and support a university department ''when one of its staff, in a fit of jealous rage, murdered a woman student in her own home''.
''Our chaplains also dealt with the trauma caused to the victim's family.
''Support is still being offered to this family, and to many other families, flatmates and friend around New Zealand and the rest of the world, whose loved ones have died here at Otago as the result of illness, accident or suicide,'' he said.
