The Right Reverend Jeffery Rowthorn 1934 - 2025

Earlier today, Wednesday, July 23, Bishop Jeffery Rowthorn died in Bloomfield, Connecticut. He died almost exactly two years after the death of his beloved wife, Anne.

As many remember, Bishop Jeffery served from 1994 to 2001 as the last bishop to be appointed as bishop in charge to serve in Europe. During his seven years as our bishop, Jeffery gave us much of the structure that has guided the emergence and maturation of the Convocation as an authentic expression of the Episcopal Church in the context and cultures of Europe. By giving shape to the Commission on the Ministry of the Baptized, he sought to put the resources of the Convocation behind lifting up the ministries of all baptized Christians. And—spurred by his irrepressible and devoted wife, Anne—he ensured that the Convocation would always be focused on encouraging and nurturing a rising generation of young Christians to serve the church and the world.

We knew him as a capable and visionary bishop who sought to remind us always of our ties to our Anglican roots, leading our pilgrimage to Canterbury in 1997 on the 1,400th anniversary of Augustine’s arrival there, and creating the tradition of the Convocation’s Canterbury Cross. We knew him as a prolific poet and hymnodist who gave us countless treasures in the “people’s theology” of the hymns we sing each Sunday. We knew him as a patient and compassionate pastor to our priests during a time of great transition—and occasional strife—in the church. And we knew both Jeffery and Anne as our friends and fellow Christians, for that was what they wanted first and always to be.

We give thanks to God for Jeffery’s passionate service to our church; for his graceful manner and poetic life; and most of all for his wise guidance that leads us still on the path toward the future into which God is calling us. May God—whom Jeffery was certain spoke Welsh as a first language—receive him into the chorus of eternal praise that rings across the ages.

We were taught by him in so many ways to keep our hope firmly fixed on the promise of redemption offered by Christ’s resurrection—yet never more than in the words of his own hymns:

Lord, you bless with words assuring:
“I am with you to the end.”
Faith and hope and love restoring,
May we serve as you intend—
And, amid the cares the claim us,
Hold in mind eternity;
With the Spirit’s gifts empower us
For the work of ministry.

Rest eternal grant him, O Christ,
And may light perpetual shine upon him.
May his soul and souls of all the faithful departed,
Through the mercies of God, rest in peace.