Bishop Barbara Harris, first woman bishop of Anglican Communion, dies at 89

(RNS) — Retired Bishop Barbara Harris, the first woman to be ordained and consecrated as a bishop in the worldwide Anglican Communion, died on Friday (March 13).

She was 89.

Harris died at a hospice house after a recent hospitalization.

“Our hearts are truly heavy at the loss of one who has been a faithful and altogether irrepressible companion, pastor and inspiration to us in the Diocese of Massachusetts for 31 years,” said Bishop Alan M. Gates, leader of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, in an announcement.

“At the same time our hearts are truly buoyed by the hope which she preached and the conviction she embodied for us throughout all these years,” he said.

Harris, who was known for quoting the words “Hallelujah anyhow” from a gospel song, served as a suffragan, or assisting, bishop in the diocese from 1989 until she retired in 2002. She later served as assisting bishop in the Diocese of Washington from 2003 to 2007.

“Bishop Barbara Harris was not large of physical stature,” said Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Michael Curry in a tweeted statement. “In fact, the opposite. But she was larger than life. She was larger than life because she lived it fully with her God and with us. She did it by actually living the love of God that Jesus taught us about.”

The great-granddaughter of a woman born into slavery, she described herself as a “fiercely…