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Meet Our Rector

• The Church of the Advent

Dear fellow members and friends of the Advent,

We are most pleased to announce that the Vestry has elected The Reverend Canon Alistair Macdonald-Radcliff to be the seventeenth Rector of The Church of the Advent.  

Father Alistair has an extraordinary resume, which stood out in a large pool of highly-qualified applicants. Since his graduation from Yale Divinity School and ordination, he has been assistant to an Archbishop of Canterbury and given clerical service across the Anglican Communion in the Anglo-Catholic tradition, including in the U.S., England, Europe, and the Middle East. As a thoughtful canon theologian and scholar, he has served as Editor of The Anglican Way journal, one of the most substantive publications on the history and teachings of Anglicanism as unified by its Prayer Book tradition. He is an experienced convener and facilitator of difficult and complex dialogues at the highest levels, particularly in interfaith contexts at the intersection of the Christian and Muslim worlds, including leadership in this capacity at the World Economic Forum and the King Abdullah Center for Interreligious and Interfaith Dialogue in Vienna.

Father Alistair’s unique combination of gifts makes him an exceptional fit for the charisms of our parish, and we are honored that he has accepted the call to be Rector of the Advent. Bishop Gates has met with Father Alistair several times, has given his endorsement to the Vestry’s call, and has noted that the substantial consensus of the Vestry in this call bears the clear signs of the working of the Holy Ghost.

We give thanks to God for His guidance of the work of the Vestry in the search process which led us to this call, and for the nearly two dozen other priest-candidates from multiple countries who co-discerned with us. We give thanks to God, too, for Bishop Gates. His great support of and encouragement in our search process, and that of his team at the Diocese, allowed us to run a full, complete, and rigorous search.

Since Father Alistair is known to many of our number already from several years of association with and periodic service to the Advent, we thought it most appropriate for the Parish to hear from him directly.

Father Alistair’s Words

It is with deep gratitude that I have, after much prayerful reflection, accepted the Call from the Wardens and Vestry, so graciously approved and endorsed by Bishop Gates, to serve as Rector of the Church of the Advent. I do so deeply aware of the astonishing history and legacy bequeathed to us today by all those who have gone before in creating this very special parish. That legacy is one of unique leadership and witness to the Anglo-Catholic tradition of Anglicanism which has reached widely and with profound impact across North America and far beyond. Such a heritage is one that it can only be a privilege to uphold and to serve. It also challenges us to build further and to promote a renewal of the tradition and of this parish’s place within it. It is indeed this vision that has led to the creation of the important Grafton House initiative, about which more is said below.

At the heart of all this, however, must always be our work together as a believing and loving community of Christians in this place, recognizing that unity does not have to entail uniformity, and seeking always to follow faithfully our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, open to all who would join us and share in that redeeming faith, as also in service to our wider community.

I could only blush to read the foregoing words from the Wardens introducing me in this text, but I then recalled that I had not long before discovered a large hole in my left sock. This was a timely corrective to the dangers at such a time of what psychologists would call “ego inflation”! It is in fact with sharp awareness of my failings and with deep humility, that I take up the yoke now laid upon me. I am profoundly conscious of the far more eminent figures who have preceded me in this role. I only dare to follow them in the knowledge that it is through God’s grace alone that I can proceed, together with the prayers and support not only of my distinguished fellow clergy, as well as of the Vestry and Wardens, but above of all of every member of this congregation, whom I am now called to love and serve. 

It was said of our sometime rector Bishop Grafton at the end of his life that he “believed in the Church, as a part of the mystical body of Christ. He knew her failings and defects, and he grieved over them. But he never doubted that God was with her, never forgot that to her, as to his spiritual mother, he owed his birth into the family of God, and all the richest blessings of his life.”  Let us all take up anew the challenge laid before us by the words of Bishop Grafton himself:

Let us go out of ourselves and live for others…. O! Christian friends, shall not our hearts be stirred afresh within us to do something more for the Master’s sake, and press on the Kingdom?

Announcing Grafton House

Additionally, we and the Vestry wish to announce a new and important educational and outreach initiative modeled on Pusey House, Oxford. We are calling this initiative Grafton House, after our sometime Rector, Bishop Charles Chapman Grafton, who was a great teacher of and evangelist for the Faith, and especially for the Anglo-Catholic tradition within it. Simply put, the purpose of Grafton House is to do as Bishop Grafton did – teach and evangelize the Faith as seen through the Anglo-Catholic tradition, starting within the Advent, and then moving to the wider church and world beyond. This initiative builds on one of the Advent’s most important charisms, that of thoughtful and substantive Christian education, and expands upon the work of our church school, our adult education curricula, and our annual academic conferences.

Father Jeff Hanson had been working on and promoting this project for several years, and the Vestry had originally hoped and expected that he would be with us to lead it, but as we all know, he accepted a wonderful academic post elsewhere this spring, which took him and his family away from us. Thus, we are grateful to God that through the search process we and the Vestry came to know a fine priest who has co-discerned with us a calling to come to the Advent both as a priest and to lead the Grafton House initiative for us and for the greater glory of God. While he has accepted our call, in deference to his current parish, we are withholding a formal announcement pending final immigration approval, which process is already underway with the support of the diocese.

***

This very exciting announcement today ends a five-and-a-half year period of uncertainty for our Parish family that began with the retirement of our much-beloved Rector the late Father Warren, was followed by the interregnum, then Covid-tide, and then the unfortunate and seemingly endless disciplinary process involving Father Anderson. Now, by the grace of God, we have Father Alistair as Rector of the Church of the Advent: a new beginning with an excellent and orthodox priest of God who knows and loves us, despite (and maybe in part because of!) our several eccentricities. We are further blessed with a wonderful team of priests of the parish, including both Father David Thompson and the soon-to-be-announced head of Grafton House. We know that together, with the leadership of our new Rector, they will teach and preach the Gospel as it was handed down by Our Lord to His apostles. This has long found expression in our particular tradition of Anglo-Catholicism, and we are joyfully confident that this heritage of worshiping God in the beauty of holiness will be sustained and renewed.

We and the Vestry remain grateful for all of your prayers as we have endeavored to discern and to do God’s will for the Advent these last challenging years. We give thanks to God for all of you, and for The Church of the Advent.

Yours in Christ,

Meg Nelson & Thatcher Gearhart,
Churchwardens

Letter from Fr. Swain

• The Church of the Advent

THE REV’D ALLAN BEVIER WARREN III, 1947-2024

We regret very much indeed to announce the death of Father Allan Bevier Warren III, Sometime Rector of the Church of the Resurrection, New York (1993-1999) and of the Church of the Advent, Boston from 1999-2018. Father Warren died in Marblehead, Massachusetts, on 31 March 2024, Easter Day, which was also the 51st anniversary of his ordination to the Sacred Priesthood by Bishop Alexander of Upper South Carolina, in 1973.

Father was a native of Charlottesville, Virginia, and was aged 77 years. He had been battling cancer for several years. He graduated from Princeton University and the General Theological Seminary in New York in 1972. He served his title at All Saints, Clinton, and Epiphany, Laurens, S. C., and was then curate of the Church of the Transfiguration, New York, from 1974-1981. He was then Canon Pastor of the Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity in Paris, France, from 1981-84, a felicitous appointment as he was a life-long Francophile. (We almost always spoke French with each other, and his French, perfectly competent, was as unique as his English!) He was then Rector of Good Shepherd, Waban, Massachusetts, 1984-1990, and curate of The Advent, Boston, 1990-1993. He had been President of the New England Catholic Clerical Union, and for several years a member of SSC. For many years, he had been a faithful member of the Council of the Guild of All Souls, and has now moved on from its list of praying members to its permanent Chantry Roll for whom we pray. There was an immediate funeral service in the form of a Solemn Requiem at The Church of the Advent in Boston, on 6 April, and a Solemn Requiem here at Resurrection, New York, on 27 April.

It was a very questionable enterprise to take on this church with only nine people and a dog in 1993, and try to “resurrect” it. It had been in such circumstances many times before, and Father decided it was possible. It should also be borne in mind that our school had just been started in 1990, and therefore it, too, needed very careful shepherding together with the very small faculty and student body, which was very far indeed from being guaranteed the success it enjoys today. The journey in church membership from 9 to the 34 people here upon his departure was in many ways more difficult than that from 34 to the 110 who were here in 2020, of whom 75-80 are still among us, not having left the city upon COVID. Our parish school went from five or six to about fifteen in his time, and today has 120 students. Our grateful thanks to Father Sammy Wood, priest-in-charge of The Church of St Mary the Virgin, Times Square, who was Father Warren’s curate at The Church of the Advent, Boston, for nine years, who preached at the Solemn Requiem here. We were delighted to have him with us, albeit on that sad occasion. As he noted in his Sermon, it was rather curious that Father Warren forbade a sermon in his most recent instructions, which were carried out at The Advent, but in his 1990s instructions, he made no such injunction, so Father Wood was free to speak, and did so very well indeed. Our order of service at Resurrection was directly taken from the funeral instructions left by Father Warren in our safe with those of parishioners upon his departure (probably never thinking to throw them out!). Most priests have these, just in case, and his are dated 31 March 1994, thirty years to the day before his death, another curious fact about the day of his death. Fauré’s Requiem was requested; the two hymns of the Mass were the tune “Maccabeus” with the original French lyrics, and “Come ye faithful raise the strain”. This Requiem Mass is online on the front page of our website, www.resurrectionnyc.org

Resurrection’s history, for those who know it, is full of times when it seemed very questionable that the Church could continue. The 1960s were a difficult time for all churches, and by the late 1970s, the membership was perilously low. When Father Cupit retired in 1991, it was very questionable exactly what would happen, but there was an endowment and hope. It was then that Father Warren was called by the Vestry, who were essentially the entire parish. Photographs of a parish picnic during his time, recently given to us, make clear his experience, gifts and joy as a parish priest and what drew people here even when there was little to offer. I have now been Rector longer than any other (23 years in June), but whatever we have been able to achieve in my time together sits very squarely on the foundation laid by my predecessor in his six years. We thank God for His faithful priests and give thanks for Father Warren’s time here, feeling secure that our prayer that he may rest in peace and be raised up amidst the saints and elect to Eternal Life, the Easter promise, will be answered by Almighty God, who called him to be his priest.

Father Swain

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