Orley Swartzentruber passed away peacefully on June 28, surrounded by his family.
Born in Argentina, he was the son of the Rev. Amos and Mrs. Edna Swartzentruber, Mennonite Missionaries from Canada. After completing primary and secondary school, he came to the United States for College and Biblical Seminary in Goshen, Indiana. After graduation, he was sent to Brussels, Belgium, then to Paris, France, where he spent the post-war decade of the 1950s in work for the Mennonite Board of Missions and Charities, founding a congregation in the Parisian suburb of Châtenay-Malabry.
Upon returning to America, Orley settled in Princeton, NJ, where he studied the Old Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary (1960-62 MA), then, under Dr. R.B.Y. Scott, earned a PhD in Religion from Princeton University (1970). In 1963, while serving as chaplain of Saint Agnes School in upstate New York, he was ordained to the priesthood of the Episcopal Church by the Rt. Rev. A. W. Brown, Bishop of Albany.
Orley returned to and remained in Princeton, where he served in the ministry of the Episcopal Church, first as Vicar of All Saints’ Chapel of Trinity Parish, then as its first Rector, as it became the newly self-supporting All Saints’ Church. He enjoyed serving as Chairman of the Committee on Rules of Order and Dispatch of Business in the NJ Diocesan Convention and was twice elected Deputy to the General Convention.
Orley retired to Sarasota, FL in 1994, where he was grateful to find a vibrant appreciation of the arts and the Church of the Redeemer. He joyfully made his home there until 2016, when he moved to The Evergreens in Moorestown, NJ, nearer to his children.
Orley is survived by Jane, his wife of 68 years, three daughters and sons-in-law, Anne and Jay Lewis, Emily and Peter Urquhart, Francine and Jonathan Storck, one son and daughter-in-law, Eric and Johanna Swartzentruber, and seven grand-children.
A Requiem Eucharist will be held at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, August 3 at All Saints’ Church, 16 All Saints Road in Princeton, followed by interment in Trinity-All Saints’ Cemetery.