Saturday, June 26, 2021

Isabel Florence Hapgood

 Isabel Florence Hapgood, Ecumenist, Translator, and Journalist 1928

The Collect:

Teach your divided church, O God, so to follow the example of your servant Isabel Florence Hapgood that we might look upon one another with a holy envy, to honor whatever is good and right in our separate traditions, and to continually seek the unity that you desire for all your people. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, who prayed that his church might be one. Amen.

Isabel Hapgood in 1890Isabel Florence Hapgood (November 21, 1851 - June 26, 1928) was an U.S. writer and translator of Russian texts. Hapgood was born in Boston, the descendant of a long-established New England family. She studied Germanic and Slavic languages, specializing in Orthodox liturgical texts. She was one of the major figures in the dialogue between Western Christianity and Orthodoxy. She traveled through Russia between 1887 and 1889, meeting Leo Tolstoy. Hapgood died in New York.*

The world desperately needs saints like Hapgood today!

* Wikipedia – via The Lectionary, http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/isabel_florence_hapgood.htm