"The Journey Continues"
A VISION has to commence from somewhere and when the visionary set-the-goal they will not know where it will end up. Such is the case of the one who set the Vision-of-the-ACW, coming from Antigua in the heavily Anglican West Indian community. His vision in the beginning, forming a church “for-our-race” in 1919, was formidable but it has turned into much more 82-years after his death.
Archbishop George Alexander McGuire (28 March 1866–10 November 1934) was the first Bishop, Metropolitan-Archbishop of the African-Orthodox-Church (AOC). He was an Episcopal Priest who became involved in a movement to establish a Black-Anglican-Denomination. He was consecrated a Bishop, 28 September 1921, in Chicago, Illinois by Joseph Rene Vilatte, the Metropolitan Archbishop of the Archdiocese of America of the Syrian Church of Antioch. Vilatte was assisted by Bishop Carl Nybladh. This consecration placed in valid apostolic succession.
McGuire was from the Caribbean Island of Antigua. He studied in a local teacher's college and Moravian Seminary. He first served as a pastor of Moravian churches. And in 1910 he became a physician and surgeon at the Boston College of Physicians and Surgeons while he was a pastor in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The AOC was originally called the Independent-Episcopal-Church. At the first Conclave of its House of Bishops, 10 September 1924, the name was changed to African-Orthodox-Church.
McGuire was unanimously elected Archbishop and enthroned with the title Archbishop-Alexander. McGuire served several years as the Chaplain of the Universal-Negro-Improvement-Association (UNIA), founded by Marcus Garvey; however, he decided in 1924 to devote himself to the expansion of the AOC.
McGuire founded a parish in West Palm Beach, Florida in 1925. Two years after that he was elected Patriarch of the AOC with the title Alexander I. The church then spreaded to Uganda as well.
On 8 November 1931, McGuire dedicated Holy Cross Pro-Cathedral in New York City. McGuire died 10 November 1934 and is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York City. At the time of his death the AOC had about 30,000 members and about 50 clergy in 30 parishes in the U.S, Africa, Cuba, Antigua and Venezuela. He was canonized by the AOC on 31 July 1983, and is a saint of the AOC.
The ACW will pay a pilgrimage to his grave August 2016.
THIS IS THE VISION OF THE ACW
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