When I left the meeting of the Rotary Club of Goose Creek this afternoon I had a message from Karen Griffin and suspected, correctly, that the news was sad, namely that her husband, the Rev'd Canon Dr. Will Griffin, had passed away -- he indeed had the previous night.
Will Griffin and I first corresponded via email before finally meeting in person at the annual Mere Anglicanism conference in Charleston in, I believe, 2006. At the time Will, whose earthly pilgrimage had included time as an Old Catholic as well as Roman Catholic (with a stint as a monk) in addition to time in the Episcopal Church before heading for the Continuum, was a priest in the Anglican Province of America and fairly recently widowed. We struck up a friendship and some time after that he married Karen, who brought him great joy. Will's service on the board of the Federation of Anglican Churches in the Americas brought him to Charleston with increasing frequency and we often enjoyed getting together -- in between those meetings we would keep up by telephone and email. When a large number of parishes left the APA to form the Diocese of the West of the Reformed Episcopal Church and later of the Anglican Church in North America and added benefit was that I got to visit with him more regularly. At the enthronement of Archbishop Robert Duncan, we processed together.
Will lived a full life in service to Christ and His Church. May he rest in peace and rise in glory!
Father Will was my neighbor and I will miss him tremendously. A better man, you'd never meet.
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