A former presiding bishop of The Episcopal Church, Frank Griswold, has died.
The Episcopal Church:
Diocese of Chicago:
The Living Church Frank T. Griswold, 25th Presiding Bishop, 1937-2023
Church Times Frank Griswold, a former US Presiding Bishop, dies aged 85
As no one has commented let me. I never met Bishop Frank. I was sometimes in the same building at the same time, but it just didn’t happen. However, I met with those who worked with him and alongside him who all spoke of his depth of spirituality and insight. He always appeared to be calm. for him, following Jesus seemed more important than denomination. I suspect he could not comprehend why some were so intent on dividing the church. he is with Christ.
I met Frank Griswold several times. He was a long-time supporter of Little Gidding, having first joined the Friends of Little Gidding in the early 1960s when he was an undergraduate at Oxford. (My connection is that I am the current Chair of that society.) In recent years he made several visits, including in 2015 when Rowan Williams led the annual Pilgrimage, and in December 2017 when he led the annual commemoration of Nicholas Ferrar at the church where Ferrar is buried. He described this latter occasion as one of the most significant of his entire ministry. One of my… Read more »
This reminds me of an occasion when I was driving Frank around the countryside near Oxford. He mentioned that he had once seen Dr Pusey’s surplice, displayed in a glass case in Pusey church. Since we were near there we went to look. There, indeed, was the surplice, duly displayed. Frank scampered about like an excited schoolboy, camera in hand, enjoying this odd moment of connection with the tradition that had formed him and which made him the formative influence he was on so many others. His weekday homilies in Chicago at the churches of the Ascension and of Saint… Read more »
After retirement, he served the nearest Anglo-Catholic parish to his old haunts in Northwest Philadelphia, St. Lukes’s, Germantown, a rough equivalent to something like St. Peter’s, Walworth in Southwark Diocese, for those who know. Not a quiet, comfortable retirement but surely a spiritually rich one.