Via Virginia Theological Seminary
Virginia Theological Seminary’s VTS Press has published Hail! Holy Hill! by the Rev. Robert W. Prichard, the Arthur Lee Kinsolving Professor of Christianity in America and Instructor in Liturgics, and Julia E. Randle, the seminary’s former archivist.
“I am pleased with end product, awed by the skill of co-author Julia Randle in selecting photographs and preparing captions, and honored to join the company of distinguished historians who have written about an institution that I love,” Prichard said.
Prichard taught his first course at VTS as an adjunct instructor in 1980 and joined the faculty full time in 1983. A graduate of Princeton University, Berkeley Divinity School at Yale, and Emory University, he entered the ordained ministry of the Episcopal Church in 1974 and served in three parishes in the Diocese of Virginia before joining the VTS faculty. Prichard is author or editor of nine books, including A History of the Episcopal Church and The Nature of Salvation. He is president of the Historical Society of The Episcopal Church and editor of The Journal of Episcopal Church Canon Law.
Julia E. Randle, M.A., served as archivist at the Bishop Payne Library at Virginia Seminary from 1990 until early 2012, when she accepted the appointment as registrar and historiographer of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia. Randle is a graduate of the College of William and Mary and of George Washington University. Before joining VTS she worked in the registrar’s office of two Smithsonian Institution bureaus and was curator/archivist of Christ Church, Alexandria, Virginia. She is a former president of National Episcopal Historians and Archivists.
“The stories, dates, facts and images bring the VTS history to life, from the early days to the present,” said the Very Rev. Ian S. Markham, dean and president of Virginia Seminary. “Their careful production of this book provides a testimony to the faithfulness and industry of those who have gone before and a challenge to those living in the present to stand up and counted in our time.”
Hail! Holy Hill! is available from the Cokesbury Bookstore at VTS.
Matthew Townsend is a Halifax-based freelance journalist and volunteer advocate for survivors of sexual misconduct in Anglican settings. He served as editor of the Anglican Journal from 2019 to 2021 and communications missioner for the Anglican Diocese of Quebec from 2019 to 2022. He and his wife recently entered catechism class in the Orthodox Church in America.
