Jeanne Person writes about the Rev. Brandt Montgomery for General Theological Seminary’s GTS News:
He is the first African-American to be ordained as a priest in the Diocese of Alabama in sixty years and only the third black priest so ordained in the 182-year history of the diocese.
… While at GTS, Fr. Montgomery preached a powerful senior sermon, for the feast of the Rev. Absalom Jones, about the experience of African-Americans and other minority people in the Episcopal Church who “sought solace and freedom embedded within the Anglican ethos, but were excluded for so long from its total riches.”
… Still, even as Fr. Montgomery recognizes the significance of his ordination and continues his witness and advocacy with respect to the African-American experience, his deepest desire is simply to serve God as a priest. “At the ordination, people kept coming up to me saying, ‘You know today is historic,’” he said. “But I am just finding joy in being Brandt, the priest, not Brandt the third African-American priest ordained in the diocese of Alabama. I just wish to serve as God has called me to serve.”
Photo from Canterbury Episcopal Chapel and Student Center for the University of Alabama
