Orley Swartzentruber *70

The Rev. Orley Swartzentruber, a retired rector of the Episcopal Church, died peacefully June 28, 2019, at the age of 93.

Born in Argentina to Mennonite missionaries from Canada, he came to the United States for college and biblical seminary in Goshen, Ind. After graduation, he was sent to Brussels and then Paris, where he spent the 1950s working for the Mennonite Board of Missionaries and Charities.

He then returned to the United States and in 1962 earned a master’s degree from the Princeton Theological Seminary. In 1963 he was ordained to the priesthood of the Episcopal Church, and in 1970 he earned a Ph.D. in religion from Princeton University.

Swartzentruber remained in Princeton and served in the Episcopal Church as vicar of All Saints’ Chapel of Trinity Parish, and then as the first rector when it became the newly self-supporting All Saints’ Church. He retired in 1994 to Sarasota, Fla., where he remained until 2016, when he moved back to New Jersey and was nearer his children.

He is survived by his wife of 68 years, Jane; four children (including Emily A. Urquhart ’78); and seven grandchildren.

Graduate alumni memorials are prepared by the APGA.