Stephen Elliott (bishop)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Stephen Elliott (born August 31, 1806 in Beaufort, South Carolina, died December 21, 1866 in Savannah, Georgia) was the 37th bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America (ECUSA). He was the first Bishop of Georgia and Provisional Bishop of Florida. He was also the first and only Presiding Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America.

[edit] Life

Elliott attended Harvard and graduated in 1825 from South Carolina College, where he was president of the Clariosophic Society. He studied law and practiced in Charleston and Beaufort, South Carolina from 1827 until 1833, when he became a candidate for holy orders in the Episcopal Church. He was ordained a deacon in 1835 and took priest's orders the following year. In 1840 he was chosen first bishop of the Diocese of Georgia, and after his consecration, February 28, 1841, became rector of St. John's Church, Savannah. Bishop Elliott was committed to education. He founded and ran -- largely with his own funds -- Georgia's Montpelier Institute. He was also instrumental, with Bishops Polk and Otey, in the founding of the The University of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee.

When secession occurred and the war arrived, many of the Christian denominations in the U.S. split into Northern and Southern branches, a division that persists in many denominations today. The Episcopal Church was no different, giving rise to the Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America. Stephen Elliott became the Presiding Bishop of the Confederate States. Largely through the efforts of Bishop Elliott and his friend Bishop John Henry Hopkins of Vermont, who was the Presiding Bishop of the U.S. Episcopal Church, the Northern and Southern branches of the Church were reunited after the Civil War. Both men considered this crucial to the survival of the Church and the nation.

[edit] References

Barnwell, Stephen B. (1969). The Story of an American Family. Marquette, 156-159. 

Northen (Ed.), William J. (1910). Men of Mark in Georgia. Atlanta: A. B. Caldwell, 349-351. 

Perry, William Stevens (1895). The Episcopate in America. New York: The Christian Literature Co., 82-83. 

“Death of Bishop Stephen Elliott”, The Daily News and Herald (Savannah, Georgia) (Savannah, Georgia): 2, 1866-12-22 

“Georgia: Death of Bishop Stephen Elliott”, New York Times (New York, New York): 2, 1866-12-31