Well, it's happening again. The Rev. Norman Elliott of All Saints Episcopal Church will celebrate another birthday Feb. 2, his 97th. It's extremely rare to find clergy still active at his age. Elliott's ministry and friendships have touched thousands of Alaskans and beg recognition while he's still with us. Elliott retired in 1990 at age 70, a church requirement then, but came out of retirement two years ago to act as "priest-in-charge" at All Saints when their previous rector departed with little notice. The Rev. David Terwilliger has been selected as All Saints' new rector and will be installed by the Right Rev. Mark Lattime, bishop of Alaska, at Easter.
Recently Elliott was hospitalized with pneumonia. Still recovering, he maintains an active schedule of worship and hospital visits. While he was in the hospital, Sen. Lisa Murkowski visited him. She told me: "He is a guy that's not going to let things pass him by. A couple of weeks ago when I visited him in the hospital at Providence, he was sitting there in the hospital bed grumping about the fact that he had places to go. I think with Father Elliott, he lives every day to the fullest, from the time that he wakes up in the morning to the time that he goes to bed at night. He is living every day, and that's living a life well."
Elliott regularly visits patients at Anchorage hospitals.
"Father Elliott is famous for visiting sick people in our local hospitals, somehow knowing exactly when someone is admitted," says the Rev. Michael Burke, rector of St. Mary's Episcopal Church. "In all my years of ministry, it was rare I got to the hospital before him. Once, when visiting a parishioner who both he and I had connections with, I was astounded I'd arrived at the patient's bedside before Father Elliott. I remarked about this to the parishioner. The patient broke into a huge grin. 'Look behind you,' he said, just as Father Elliott arrived in the doorway. I had beaten him there by a full two minutes!"
At last Friday's funeral for former Anchorage Archbishop Francis T. Hurley, Elliott reflected on his longtime personal friendship with the archbishop in a story about two bottles of water. The story began with Pope John Paul II inviting the choir that sang when he celebrated Mass on the Delaney Park Strip in 1981 to Rome to sing at the Vatican. Two months later, a group of 250 departed Anchorage for Europe.
At the direction of Hurley, who envisioned the church as ecumenical, the group was not limited to Roman Catholics. Elliott and his wife were part of the group, which stopped in London for the weekend. While there, Hurley celebrated Mass at a large Catholic cathedral and invited Elliott to vest. In his homily, Hurley noted that at one point, Roman Catholics and Anglicans had been one church but centuries earlier the Church of England (which in U.S. is the Episcopal Church) split off, and said that at some point down the road maybe the two churches would be unified again. Several days later, the same thing happened: At a Mass at the Vatican, the Catholic archbishop -- with the vested Episcopal priest by his side -- gave the same homily.
How did the bottles of water fit in? After Mass in London, Elliott went to the River Thames and filled a bottle of water there. After Mass in Rome, he filled a second bottle from the Tiber River. At one of Hurley's birthday parties, Elliott presented him with the two bottles, saying it was his wish that one day both would stand unified at Ship Creek pouring both bottles of water into the river to celebrate a united church.
The archbishop held on to the bottles and had a case built for them. When Elliott retired, Hurley presented him with both bottles. Elliott concluded that he would most likely not be around to see that unification happen but hoped it would happen and that the waters from the Tiber and Thames would be poured into Ship Creek.
"I had the privilege of meeting Father Norman Elliott when I first arrived at the Archdiocese of Anchorage as the newly appointed archbishop," recalls Roger L. Schwietz recalls. "It was shortly after Father Norm's 81st birthday. He had supposedly retired 12 years earlier. I would have never known. I have great admiration for Father Elliott for his continued dedication to ministry, his deep love of Christ and his longing for the unity of the Christian family. May God continue to bless him in his life of service to the greater Anchorage community."
Sen. Ted Stevens was a close friend of Elliott's. Whenever Stevens was in Anchorage, he worshipped at All Saints. When, in 1978, a Learjet with Stevens and his wife, Ann, aboard crashed at Anchorage International Airport, Elliott was alerted that Stevens was in serious condition at Providence Alaska Medical Center and was provided a police escort to quickly reach him. It fell to Elliott to break the sad news to Ted that Ann had died in the crash. Later, when Stevens married his second wife, Catherine, he chose Elliott to perform the marriage.
Former Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan first met Elliott in the early 1950s in Nenana, where his dad was a U.S. marshal and his mom commissioner, a judicial position. He has fond memories of Elliott's care for his family, even though they weren't Episcopalian. When Sullivan's dad and mom were in hospital prior to their deaths, Elliott provided warm spiritual care for them.
I deeply enjoy my conversations and relationship with Elliott. He's a real Christian in every sense of the word, and I wish him many more happy and healthy years.
All Saints Episcopal Church invites friends of the Rev. Norman Elliott to an early birthday party at McGinley's Pub in downtown Anchorage from 3 to 5 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 31.
Chris Thompson is a religion scholar who visits local churches and writes about his experiences and matters of faith on his blog, churchvisits.com.
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