Commontide
Proper 23
Liturgical Color: White/Gold
The 17th Sunday after Trinity
O God, our refuge and strength, true source of all godliness: Graciously hear the devout prayers of your Church, and grant that those things which we ask faithfully, we may obtain effectually; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Most liturgical texts are from the Book of Common Prayer (2019) of the Anglican Church in North America.
The New Coverdale Psalter, © 2019 by the Anglican Church in North America. Used by permission.
Bishop of Shanghai
Anglican Commemoration
Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky (1831-1906) was a Lithuanian-born Jew who came to faith in Christ, was ordained in the Episcopal Church, and became the third missionary bishop of Shanghai. He gave his life to putting the whole Bible into the hands of the Chinese in their own language, and when a stroke left him paralyzed in 1881 he did not lay the work down: for his last twenty-five years he typed his translations with a single finger. His feast is October 14.
Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky was born in 1831 in Tauroggen, Lithuania, to a Jewish family and received rabbinic training in his youth. After emigrating to the United States, he experienced Christian conversion and enrolled at the General Theological Seminary in New York. Following ordination, Schereschewsky was commissioned as an Episcopal missionary to China in 1859. He worked in Shanghai and Beijing, establishing parishes, training Chinese clergy, and mastering Mandarin and classical Chinese with exceptional linguistic precision. In 1877, he was consecrated Bishop of Shanghai, the first Episcopal bishop appointed to East Asia. His episcopal ministry focused on developing an indigenous Chinese church with trained native leadership. In 1881, Schereschewsky suffered a stroke that partially paralyzed him and ended his active episcopate. Rather than retire to comfort, he embarked on his magnum opus: translating the entire Bible into Mandarin Chinese and Easy Wenli. Working from a wheelchair and typing with a single finger of his partially paralyzed hand, he labored for 25 years (1881–1906). His Mandarin Bible became a standard translation used by Chinese churches, and his Easy Wenli version served less-educated readers. Schereschewsky died on October 15, 1906, having completed his final revision. His life exemplifies conversion, missionary zeal, scholarly discipline, and heroic perseverance in service to the Gospel.
Schereschewsky exemplifies the sacrificial missionary and the scholar-saint whose commitment to making Scripture accessible to the church transcended personal suffering. His perseverance despite paralysis became a model of Christian endurance and witness. He is venerated in missionary tradition and in the history of Bible translation as a figure of scholarly dedication and apostolic zeal.