Requiescat in pace: Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold

Our prayers today are with the family of former Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold III, who entered into eternal rest earlier today.

Bishop Griswold, who led the Episcopal Church from 1998-2006, was a kind and gentle priest who held the church together despite enormous pressures from around the world. Through thoughtful and prayerful leadership, he expanded access to God’s table for LGBTQ Christians and leaders, and helped establish a life-giving Full Communion agreement with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

When it would have been easier to say no, Bishop Griswold walked with God to find a way to say yes. And for that, we are grateful.

From the current Presiding Bishop, the Most Rev. Michael Bruce Curry:

Please join me in prayer for Bishop Griswold’s family and for all of us who give thanks for a remarkable and faithful servant of God who served among us as the 25th presiding bishop of The Episcopal Church. May the soul of Bishop Griswold, and the souls of all the departed, through the mercies of God, rest in peace and rise in glory.

Since the 1940s, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church has had his or her seat here at Washington National Cathedral, and every nine years the new presiding bishop is installed in office by taking his or her seat in the Great Choir of the Cathedral.

O God, who by the glorious resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ destroyed death, and brought life and immortality to light: Grant that your servant Frank, being raised with him, may know the strength of his presence, and rejoice in his eternal glory; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.