Bishop Charles Quintard - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Charles Todd Quintard was an American physician and clergyman who became the second bishop

Bishop

A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...

of the Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee

Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee

The Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee is the diocese of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America that covers roughly Middle Tennessee. A single diocese spanned the entire state until 1982, when the Episcopal Diocese of West Tennessee was created; the Diocese of Tennessee was again split...

and the first Vice-Chancellor of the University of the South at Sewanee.

Medical career

He was born in Stamford, Connecticut

Stamford, Connecticut

Stamford is a city in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. According to the 2010 census, the population of the city is 122,643, making it the fourth largest city in the state and the eighth largest city in New England...

to a Huguenot

Huguenot

The Huguenots were members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France during the 16th and 17th centuries. Since the 17th century, people who formerly would have been called Huguenots have instead simply been called French Protestants, a title suggested by their German co-religionists, the...

-descended family and attended school in New York City, including medical studies at University Medical College, New York University

New York University

New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...

and Bellevue Hospital, graduating in 1847. Quintard moved to Athens, Georgia, in 1848 to take up a medical practice, then moved to Memphis in 1851 to teach physiology and pathological anatomy at Memphis Medical College. Dr. Quintard's 1854 report on Memphis mortality statistics was covered in the New York Times, including his assessment of the city as being "the first considerable place to be without the range of yellow fever

Yellow fever

Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family....

," a boast that proved tragically incorrect in the 1870s.

Priesthood

During this time, Quintard became friends with James Hervey Otey

James Hervey Otey

James Hervey Otey , Christian educator and the first Episcopal Bishop of Tennessee, established the first Anglican church in the state and its first parish churches.-Biography:...

, the first bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee

Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee

, resulting in his decision to give up the medical profession for the priesthood. Quintard studied for holy orders

Holy Orders

The term Holy Orders is used by many Christian churches to refer to ordination or to those individuals ordained for a special role or ministry....

in 1854, was ordained in 1856, and subsequently served as the rector

Rector

The word rector has a number of different meanings; it is widely used to refer to an academic, religious or political administrator...

of Calvary Church

Calvary Episcopal Church (Memphis, Tennessee)

Calvary Episcopal Church, located at 102 North Second Street at Adams Avenue, in Memphis, Tennessee, in the United States, is an historic Episcopal church, founded August 6, 1832 by the Rev. Thomas Wright. The nave is the oldest public building in continuous use in the city of Memphis and was...

in Memphis and at the Church of the Advent in Nashville.

A supporter of the Oxford Movement

Oxford Movement

The Oxford Movement was a movement of High Church Anglicans, eventually developing into Anglo-Catholicism. The movement, whose members were often associated with the University of Oxford, argued for the reinstatement of lost Christian traditions of faith and their inclusion into Anglican liturgy...

he described himself as a "high churchman"

High church

The term "High Church" refers to beliefs and practices of ecclesiology, liturgy and theology, generally with an emphasis on formality, and resistance to "modernization." Although used in connection with various Christian traditions, the term has traditionally been principally associated with the...

and a "ritualist", identifying with Anglicans who were reviving ritual practices associated, in the popular mind, with Roman Catholicism.

Civil War

After the outbreak of the American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

, Quintard was nominated by soldiers in the Confederate

Confederate States of America

The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...

1st Regiment Tennessee Volunteer Infantry

The 1st Regiment Tennessee Volunteer Infantry was an infantry regiment that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War.-Service:The 1st Tennessee Infantry was organized at Camp Dick Robinson in Garrard County, Kentucky August through September 1861 and mustered in for a three year...

, to serve as their chaplain. He accepted this invitation, despite his initial pro-Union stance, and also served as a regimental surgeon.

The South's first post-war bishop

Bishop Otey died in 1863, but the Diocese of Tennessee was unable to elect a new leader until after the war, on September 7, 1865, when it selected Quintard as its second bishop. The bishops and lay leaders of the national Episcopal Church confirmed his election the next month at the General Convention

General Convention of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America

The General Convention is the primary governing and legislative body of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. With the exception of the Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, and the Constitution and Canons, it is the ultimate authority in the Episcopal Church. General Convention...

in Philadelphia. The subsequent consecration of the South's first post-war bishop was viewed as a sign of healing within the church, as evidenced by this comment in the October 13, 1865 New York Times:

The entire service was one to be long remembered by all who witnessed it, and the occasion was one fraught with interest and importance in the history of the Church, as it marked the first step toward that reunion in the Church consequent upon the rapid march of events and the peace which now happily blesses our whole land. It is to be hoped that the occasion will strengthen that harmony which prevails in the convention, and be productive of beneficial results.

Quintard received honorary doctorates from Columbia College (Doctor of Divinity

Doctor of Divinity

Doctor of Divinity is an advanced academic degree in divinity. Historically, it identified one who had been licensed by a university to teach Christian theology or related religious subjects....

, 1866) and Cambridge (Doctor of Laws, 1867).

Stewardship of Sewanee: The University of the South

Quintard quickly launched rebuilding efforts in his diocese, which had suffered much physical and emotional distress during the war. He also led efforts to ensure the post-war survival of the fledgling University of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee

Sewanee, Tennessee

Sewanee is an unincorporated locality in Franklin County, Tennessee, United States, treated by the U.S. Census as a census-designated place . The population was 2,361 at the 2000 census...

. As the school's vice-chancellor (the institution's chief executive position, despite the name) Quintard sponsored the establishment of a training school for clergy there in 1866 and laid the cornerstone for St. Augustine's Chapel in 1867. He traveled to northern U.S. dioceses to raise funds for the university and went to England three times with the same purpose, returning with large sums of money and many books for the school's library.

Cathedral

At the beginning of 1871, Quintard was presented with the first Episcopal cathedral in the South, when the parish church of St. Mary

St. Mary's Episcopal Cathedral in Memphis

St. Mary's Episcopal Cathedral, located near downtown Memphis, Tennessee, is the cathedral church of the Episcopal Diocese of West Tennessee and the former cathedral of the old statewide Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee.-History:St...

in Memphis symbolically presented him with keys to the building. While the bishop retained his ecclesiastical seat in Memphis, he continued to live in Sewanee with his family. He ceded the "Bishop's House" on the close

Cathedral Close

A cathedral close is an architectural term referring to the series of buildings that serve as appendages to a cathedral. These may include buildings housing diocesan offices, schools, free-standing chapels associated with the cathedral, and the houses of the bishop and other clergy associated with...

of St. Mary's Cathedral to the sisters of the Community of St. Mary

Community of St. Mary

The Community of St. Mary is an Anglican religious order of nuns with three independent houses located in Greenwich, New York, Sewanee, Tennessee, and Mukwonago, Wisconsin...

for their educational and humanitarian missions.

Quintard believed that his mission was to make the Episcopal Church in Tennessee “a refuge for all—the lame, halt and blind as well as the rich.” He opposed parish pew rents and fostered a ministry on behalf of the disadvantaged. Concerned by the effects of industrialization on workers, he established a refuge for the poor in Memphis in 1869, and in 1873 he advocated a plan to assist people lacking food, housing, and education. Quintard started missions for the laborers at foundries in South Pittsburg

Christ Episcopal Church (South Pittsburg, Tennessee)

Christ Episcopal Church and Parish House, located at 302 West 3rd Street at Holly Avenue in South Pittsburg, Tennessee, are historic Carpenter Gothic structures which were added on August 22, 1977, to the National Register of Historic Places....

(1876) and in Chattanooga (1880). Hoping that the Episcopal Church would also expand its evangelistic work among African Americans, he opposed plans to segregate the black congregations of the denomination, and he assisted in the founding of Hoffman Hall, a seminary for African Americans adjacent to Fisk University

Fisk University

Fisk University is an historically black university founded in 1866 in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. The world-famous Fisk Jubilee Singers started as a group of students who performed to earn enough money to save the school at a critical time of financial shortages. They toured to raise funds to...

in Nashville.

Quintard died in February 1898 in Meridian, Georgia, while staying there in an effort to improve his health. Quintard is honored with a feast day on the liturgical of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America

Calendar of saints (Episcopal Church in the United States of America)

The veneration of saints in the Episcopal Church is a continuation of an ancient tradition from the early Church which honors important people of the Christian faith. The usage of the term "saint" is similar to Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions. Those in the Anglo-Catholic tradition may...

on February 16.

External links

Documents by and about Quintard at Project Canterbury
Address by the Rt. Rev. Thomas Frank Gailor about Bishop Quintard and the University of the South
Charles Todd Quintard in the Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture

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