The Rt. Rev. Douglas Fisher, ninth Bishop of Western Massachusetts, announces the death of the diocese’s sixth bishop, the Rt. Rev. Andrew Frederick Wissemann, on Wednesday:
Bishop Wissemann served the people of this diocese with clarity of purpose and compassion during his eight-year episcopate. “A soft-spoken, self-effacing, scholarly man whose genuineness and sympathy were immediately apparent to all, he was, by gift and temperament, more inclined toward the pastoral model of a bishop than the lordly,” wrote diocesan historian Richard Nunley.
Raised up by the Church in Western Massachusetts for leadership in 1983, Bishop Wissemann had been the beloved rector of St. Stephen’s in Pittsfield for sixteen years. His pastoral care extended to both St. Martin’s in Pittsfield and St. Luke’s, Lanesboro. Prior to that he served as rector of St. James, Greenfield from 1960-1968 following seven years of service to churches in the Diocese of Connecticut.
