Bishops of Maine
The Right Reverend George Burgess
George Burgess, the first Bishop of Maine, was born in Rhode Island in 1809; he graduated from Brown University in 1826. Burgess was admitted to deacon's orders, in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1834 and was ordained priest in late 1834. He then served as rector of Christ Church in Hartford, Connecticut, and as rector of the Episcopal Church in Gardiner, the first Episcopal church in Maine.
Burgess was consecrated as the first Episcopal Bishop of Maine in 1847. Bishop Burgess’ own combination of liberal evangelicalism with sympathy for the Oxford movement (although he warned against what he called its “medieval and nonscriptural tendencies!”) confirmed Maine’s comfort with a wide variety of worship styles.
Burgess authored many publications, including The Book of Psalms, translated into English Verse published in 1840 and Pages from the Ecclesiastical History of New England between 1740 and 1840 published in 1847.
