Makana Mayor Zamuxolo Peter is among those who paid tribute to former Grahamstown bishop David Russell this week. Russell died of cancer on Sunday 17 August, in Cape Town. He was 75.
Makana Mayor Zamuxolo Peter is among those who paid tribute to former Grahamstown bishop David Russell this week. Russell died of cancer on Sunday 17 August, in Cape Town. He was 75.
During the 80s, while in Grahamstown, Russell was a leader in the Anglican Church's campaign against apartheid injustices, particularly forced removals.
Along with the Mayor the city's current Bishop, Ebenezer St Mark Ntlali, and Nancy Charton, one of the church's first women priests, spoke to Grocott's Mail about his impact on their lives and the Church. Speaking at his Grahamstown home, Bishop Ebenezer described Russell as a role model and great friend.
“Bishop Russell was an outstanding priest, bishop and prophet,” Ebenezer said on Monday. “He had this humility and simplicity in him that I cannot describe.” It was Russell who took a young Ebenezer under his wing when he came to Grahamstown to study in 1989, even offering to pay for his wife’s school fees while she read towards a degree through the University of South Africa.
“It is his passion for the oppressed and the poor that we must remember,” Ebenezer said. In an open letter to all churches and the community of South Africa this week, Bishop Ebenezer listed Russell's many achievements, calling him “a unifier driven by the mandate of God, passion and love.”
One of three pioneering women priests, Reverend Professor Nancy Charton spoke this week from her George home. Russell ordained Charton and two other women in 1992.
“He was a wonderful man and role model who fought quite upfront during the struggle,” Charton told Grocott’s Mail on Tuesday.
“I admired his courage and persistence.”
Charton's ordaining opened the doors for other dioceses. There are currently two women bishops – Ellinah Wamukoya in Swaziland and Margaret Vertue in Cape Town.
In a tribute to Russell, published in full on Grocott's Online, the Mayor spoke on the influence Russell had on former activists from the region – many of whom are now politicians. Describing him as a born leader who unwaveringly associated himself with the liberation struggle of the people of South Africa, Peter said, "many reminisce about the days he spent visiting trialists and prisoners in dark apartheid prisons.
"Many who were put in isolation in single cells derived joy from just knowing that he was vociferously fighting for their freedom.
"Many a politician of local origin learned the qualities of a seasoned activist from the lanky, bespectacled Bishop of Grahamstown," Peter said.
Plans for Russell's Cape Town funeral service had not yet been finalised at the time of going to press. David Patrick Hamilton Russell was born on 6 November 1938.
He received his PhD in Theology at the University of Cape Town. He was ordained in 1965 and joined the diocese of Grahamstown in 1987 as bishop. He served here until 2004.
A memorial service for Russell will be held at the Cathedral at 1pm on Thursday 28 August.
