Remembering Bishop William Alexander Guerry

Today, we remember Bishop William Alexander Guerry, the 8th Bishop of our Diocese, who died on this day in 1928, five days after being shot in his office in Charleston by a priest who had attacked the bishop’s position on advancing racial equality in South Carolina, and especially his proposal to install a black suffragan bishop in the diocese. The priest who shot the him believed Bishop Guerry would bring an end to white supremacy in the south. So, overtaken by hatred, and perhaps other mental issues, he fired the shot that killed the bishop and then turned the gun on himself, taking his own life.

In 1909, the second year of his episcopate, Bishop Guerry, addressing a meeting of provincial church leaders in Birmingham Alabama, explained his belief about the breadth and depth of the Christian community, “We should strive for unity, not uniformity.  Uniformity is mechanical, barren, unfruitful, and unprofitable. Unity is organic, living, and capable of endless growth. If we are to be truly catholic, as Christ himself is catholic, then we must have a church  broad enough to embrace within its communion every living human soul.”
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Before Bishop Guerry died in Roper Hospital, he said of his assailant, “Forgive him, Father, he knew not what he did.” We remember him today as a Bishop, Reformer, and Martyr. This year, we will celebrate Bishop Guerry Day in our diocese on June 26. For more information on this great bishop, as well as the readings and collect for his remembrance, visit our website at this link: http://www.episcopalchurchsc.org/bishop-guerry.html

COLLECT FOR THE FEAST OF BISHOP GUERRY: God of truth and sacrifice, we give thanks for your servant William Alexander Guerry, who, like the church's first martyr, gave witness to your liberating gospel and echoed Christ's healing words of forgiveness. May we also seek your truth as we offer ourselves in obedience to the same. All this we pray through him who is forever the bishop and reformer of our souls, Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.

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