Bishop Charles Arthurson, who became the first Indigenous bishop in Canada upon his election as suffragan bishop of the Anglican diocese of Saskatchewan in 1989—a position he held until his 2008 retirement—died Aug. 30 in Prince Albert, Sask. He was 88 years old.
Arthurson was Cree and a residential school survivor and served in ordained ministry for more than 50 years. Colleagues described him as a formative figure for Indigenous ministries who held himself and others to very high standards.
National Indigenous Anglican Archbishop Chris Harper called Arthurson “the prelude to the symphony that’s going on now”—referring to Sacred Circle, the self-determining Indigenous church within the Anglican Church of Canada—who brought “a presence of Indigenous ministries that I think was needed for the time and the age that he came in … He was also one of my mentors, and I’ll always have fond memories of him.”
Retired bishop Michael Hawkins, who served as bishop of Saskatchewan from 2008 to 2023 and worked alongside Arthurson, described the latter as “hard-working and straightforward with a wicked sense of humor.” He added, “He did not always suffer fools gladly, but he served gladly over many decades and took the weight and responsibility of ordained ministry seriously. He was never interested in retirement but rather saw himself as Christ’s faithful soldier and servant to life’s end.”
Born in Norway House, Man. in 1937, Arthurson was ordained in the diocese of Keewatin in 1972. He served as a priest in the Manitoba parishes of Shamattawa, Norway House and Split Lake as well as the Ontario parishes of Big Trout Lake and Sioux Lookout.
In 1983, Arthurson moved to La Ronge, Sask., where he was elected suffragan bishop six years later. In 2002 he received Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden Jubilee Medal for his service to the church and community. After retiring, Arthurson continued to serve half-time as parish priest in La Ronge and as the provincial chaplain for the Royal Canadian Legion, and conducted the Eucharist once a month at St. George’s Anglican Church in Prince Albert.
The national Indigenous archbishop linked Arthurson’s complex personality to the historical context of the Anglican church and surviving the residential school system.
“He was a hard man to work with,” Harper said of Arthurson. “But he was also wonderful, brutally honest, incredibly pastoral. He is a product of the early residential school and especially the early church, which did not have very much understanding of Indigenous people and Indigenous ministries.
“So he had to fit into that mould and shape, accordingly, who he was and how he responded in things. He held himself at such a high standard because that was his way of coping and responding to the diminishing effects of the early church, which saw Indigenous people as incapable or else as ‘lesser than.’ His high standards were imposed upon himself more than anybody else.”
Retired bishop Anthony Burton, who served as bishop of Saskatchewan from 1993 to 2008, said in a Facebook post that he was “joined at the hip” to Arthurson for 15 years, with Arthurson serving as godfather to his eldest daughter.
As the first Indigenous bishop in Canada, Arthurson “was continually under pressure to champion various and often conflicting ideological agendas, both aboriginal and non-aboriginal,” Burton said. “He knew his own mind, however, and frustrated all attempts to co-opt him. He was not to be bullied.”
Arthurson “knew his calling was to eschew ideology or easy answers and instead to focus on Jesus Christ. He was a man of granite integrity, who knew both who—and whose—he was. Entirely without airs himself, he viewed pomposity, cant or flummery in the church with quiet amusement. His rapier sense of humour and work ethic were legendary.”
“History will surely be kind to him,” Burton added. “I think it likely that he will be revered in death in ways he was never widely understood in life.”
Arthurson is survived by his wife Faye and two adult children. A funeral service has been scheduled to take place Sept. 5 in Prince Albert at St. Alban’s Cathedral.
