The college was saddened last week to learn of the death of the Rev. Dr. Elizabeth Rowlinson. Dr. Rowlinson was a graduate of the college twice over, first in 1993 after completing the Reading and Tutorial program and In Ministry Year and then again in 2004 when the college granted her a Doctor of Divinity (honoris causa). Her long and distinguished career included a close association with the college, including nearly 20 years as chaplain. The college’s former principal, the Rev. Dr. John Simons, offered these memories of working alongside Dr. Rowlinson.

It is with profound sadness that I learned of the death of Elizabeth Rowlinson in the third week of March 2020. For nineteen years, until her resignation in 2014, Elizabeth served the college as chaplain, and for most of that time in an honorary capacity.

Elizabeth’s association with the college began before her appointment as chaplain in 1995. Back in the mid-80s while serving as the Dean of Women at Trinity College, Toronto, and Principal of St. Hilda’s College, Elizabeth enrolled in the college’s Reading and Tutorial Course in Theology. She had previously lived in the Montreal area where she had earned a Ph.D. at McGill, and, with her husband, Hugh, had raised three sons. Elizabeth loved Montreal and wanted to return after retiring from St. Hilda’s College. Accepted as a postulant for ordination by Bishop Andrew Hutchison, Elizabeth completed the In Ministry Year in 1993 and was ordained the same year. She served as an assistant priest at the Cathedral and as one of the chaplains at McGill. It was a natural move for her to add to these duties the responsibilities of part-time chaplain at the college.

We were greatly blessed by her ministry. The college residence was populated mostly by McGill undergraduates and Elizabeth paid special attention to them, hosting social gatherings and a Sunday night service in St. Luke’s Chapel. She also instituted the Service of Lessons and Carols for Advent, which has become one of our end-of-term traditions, continued to this day in St. Luke’s Chapel.

Elizabeth’s musical connections in the wider community earned us an entrée to the CAMMAC Music Centre in the Laurentians where we have held our annual orientation retreat since 1996 (with the exception of two years while the facility was under reconstruction). Moreover, her friendship with the organ-builder, Karl Wilhelm, allowed for the gift of a handsome tracker-action organ currently located in St. Luke’s Chapel and given to the college in memory of Elizabeth’s parents.

And then there are the bells! Elizabeth initiated a whole generation of theology students into the proper use of handbells which, for almost twenty years, accompanied our psalm-singing at the weekly Eucharist in St. Luke’s Chapel. On those occasions when we hosted our sister colleges at tri-college worship in the Montreal School of Theology, more than one Dio student felt it imperative to sing the psalm with handbells as this constituted (or so it was believed) a distinctively Anglican contribution to the praise of God offered by the ecumenical Church.

A colleague described Elizabeth as a force of nature and of the Spirit. Those of us who knew her would surely agree. She was generous, intrepid, and cheerful. As principal, I valued her wise counsel, for, as a one-time dean and principal she had invaluable experience and insight. For her contributions to the college the Board of Governors elected to award her an honorary doctorate 2004.

May she rest in peace and rise in glory.  

John Simons

An obituary of Elizabeth Rowlinson is available online.