The Liturgical Calendar: The Church Remembers

Today the church remembers Samuel Isaac Joseph Scherechewsky, Bishop of Shanghai, 1906.

It is hard to imagine a more cosmopolitan and ecumenical character than Samuel Schereschewsky, a Lithuanian Jew who trained in a rabbinic school in Poland, an immigrant to America who was baptized by a Baptist minister and educated in Presbyterian and Episcopalian seminaries. He went to China as a missionary in the service of the Episcopal Church and was eventually ordained Bishop of Shanghai.

He was a robust and active man whose lifestyle was severely disrupted when he suffered from a stroke that incapacitated him and forced his return to America. For the rest of his life he was confined to a wheelchair. Undaunted, it was in this condition that he did his most famous work. Always an excellent linguist, he now gave his full attention to the translation of the entire Bible into two Chinese dialects. Eventually it was necessary for him to return to China where Chinese scribes could complete the details of this monumental work. He died in 1906 in Tokyo, Japan.

We give you thanks for missionaries and for their work. Amen.

Read the Wikipedia article here.

O God, in your providence you called Joseph Schereschewsky from his home in Eastern Europe to the ministry of this Church, and sent him as a missionary to China, upholding him in his infirmity, that he might translate the Holy Scriptures into languages of that land. Lead us, we pray, to commit our lives and talents to you, in the confidence that when you give your servants any work to do, you also supply the strength to do it; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

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