Man, 79, to Be Ordained as an Anglican Priest

Reg Hammond has an old black-and-white photograph of his family taken more than 40 years ago on a sunny day in Ventura.

Standing on the lawn of his parents’ home, his four brothers and father, all draped in the neatly pressed robes of the priesthood, stand reverently while a squinting Hammond smiles.

“The one in the suit, that’s me,” Hammond said.

If that picture were taken today, it would be tougher to pick Reg Hammond out.

At an age when some are content to concentrate on their great-grandchildren, the 79-year-old Hammond, like his brothers and father before him, has become a man of the cloth, taking on the spiritual leadership of Ventura County’s only Anglican Church. It is a church that he helped found.

“It’s an awesome responsibility, it really is,” Hammond said. “I feel that because I’m responsible for getting this group together, then I have the duty to carry on and do my best to see that it does what we started out to do.”

Much to the delight of his congregation, Hammond will be ordained an Anglican priest today at the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Ventura by Bishop Robert J. Godfrey. When he is, he will be the only priest in his family: Hammond’s two living brothers are both retired.

While congregation members said the role fits Hammond like the tailored suit he wore in that 1952 photograph, the longtime Fillmore resident said the gravity of his life’s newest chapter is a little overwhelming.

“It’s a decision you don’t go into lightly or carelessly,” he said. “You really have to understand what exactly it is that you’re accepting, and that can be a little daunting.”

But after a life spent so close to the orders of priesthood, Hammond understands those duties better than most.

Born the fourth of five sons to an Episcopal priest in 1918 in Manitoba, Canada, Hammond moved with his family to Ventura in 1927.

After graduating from Ventura High School, Hammond married a classmate, then went on to serve in an antiaircraft battalion during World War II. He landed at Normandy, six days after the D-Day invasion, and battled his way across Europe to Czechoslovakia with Gen. George S. Patton’s 3rd Army.

He served occupation duty in Germany after the war and returned to the United States in 1946 with a bronze star and five battle stars pinned to his chest.

Although he had planned on taking a position in his in-laws’ grocery business, the store had closed its doors, and Hammond enrolled at UC Santa Barbara, earning a degree in education before going to UCLA to earn master’s and doctoral degrees.

While his brothers had all followed in their father’s footsteps, assuming positions within the Episcopal church, Hammond embarked on a career in education, holding positions as teacher, principal and superintendent in several cities throughout the state before retiring from the Ventura Unified School District in 1978.

He now lives in Fillmore with Marge, his wife of 56 years, in a ranch house set in the middle of an orange grove.

When not reading his prayer book or studying the church’s holy rites, Hammond likes to fiddle around on his computer or read his favorite author, Louis L’Amour.

While Hammond said he never intended on becoming a priest, a difference of opinion between him and his former church set him on his path.

In 1994, Hammond and several other members of the Episcopal congregation quit the church to start St. George’s Anglican Church.

“I felt the church was not headed where I thought it should be going,” he said. “I had the feeling that the church was looking to society for direction, whereas I think society should look to the church for direction.”

So Hammond and the 15 or so congregants who followed started their own church under the more rigid tenets of orthodox Anglicanism set forth in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer.

For the first few years, St. George’s congregation met at a pavilion at the Fillmore Ladies’ Club, but have since moved to the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Ventura, where they share the chapel.

St. George’s has also had to work without a full-time priest. Since its establishment, the church has relied on a turnstile-method of delivering Communion and other sacred rites with a steady rotation of retired priests visiting once a month to administer the rites.

“I guess one of the problems with starting an Anglican Church is that there aren’t a lot of ministers around looking for jobs,” Hammond said. “The congregation felt it would be more helpful if I became ordained and conducted all the services.”

Because Hammond had spent so much time performing church duties, he was able to fulfill the ordination requirements in only four months of at-home study.

Members of St. George’s congregation said that having one of their own as priest has given the church a special feeling of establishment and depth that has so far been elusive.

“In a way, it’s like we’re all being ordained,” said Helen Knight of Fillmore. “It’s an honor for all of us that’s he’s decided to do this.”

Hammond, however, is a bit more modest about his weighty decision.

“I guess it’s just something I finally feel called to do,” he said. “Even though there’s a lot of responsibility, it’s also an honor to be able to help the congregation in their spiritual lives.”