Ecclesiastical career<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
He was ordained a deacon of the Church of Pakistan<\/a> in 1979 and as a priest in 1980. He served first as curate at St. Andrew’s Church, in Karachi, to serve mainly his small English language congregation. He later became Rector, which he was until 1987. He taught during this time at the Church of Pakistan Seminary, now known as St. Thomas’ Seminary. He was elected the youngest Bishop of the Diocese of Raiwind in 1987. He first served as the Moderator of the Church of Pakistan, from 1997 to 2002, and served once again from 2009 to 2017. He also serves on the executive committee of the World Council of Churches<\/a>.[1]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2017, he was awarded the Hubert Walter Award for Reconciliation and Interfaith Cooperation<\/a> by the Archbishop of Canterbury.[2]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n Bishop \u2018Sammy\u2019 Azariah shares episcopal duties in the Diocese of L.A.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From Long Beach to Lompoc, Bishop Assisting Samuel Azariah baptizes and confirms Southland Episcopalians and playfully asks congregations for a show of hands if they\u2019ve \u201cever seen a Pakistani bishop before.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The soft-spoken Azariah told The Episcopal News recently he likes to ask because \u201cI look so different. Everybody\u2019s interested in looking at me and hearing from me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI tell them who I am and what my background is and where is my faith based and how it has grown, and how I have grown in my faith and experienced this ministry with passion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He is the retired moderator of the Church of Pakistan, the result of the 1970 union of Anglicans, Methodists, Lutherans and Scottish Presbyterians in a nation where Christians number about 2.5 million, or about 1.6 percent of the population. Of those, approximately half are Roman Catholic in the majority-Muslim country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Elected the church\u2019s youngest bishop in 1987, he moved from Karachi\u2019s bustling metropolis to Raiwind, \u201cthe smallest diocese,\u201d with about ten rural congregations and \u201cno money, no programs, no infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Undeterred, throughout his 20-year episcopacy Azariah built a cathedral, started schools, ministries, and health care facilities, initiated ground-breaking interfaith programs, rescued victims of sex trafficking and blasphemy laws, and endured institutionalized persecution with grace and reconciliation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Conversant in English, Urdu and Punjabi, he now hopes to learn Spanish. He has traveled the world, lived on several continents, served on international councils, hosted archbishops of Canterbury in his home, and last year was awarded the Hubert Walter Award for Reconciliation and Interfaith Cooperation by current Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most of that would not have happened, he believes, without the partnership of the Rev. Khushnud Mussarat Azariah, the first Pakistani woman ordained a priest and his wife of 40 years, and their experiences of the crippling poverty, unassailable hope and deep faith of his flock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Azariah\u2019s \u201cministry with passion\u201d began more than 7,700 miles and a continent away, in the southern part of Pakistan. He was born in Karachi in 1949 to young parents who so desperately longed for their first child to be a son they promised God to dedicate him to the church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s how I got my name, Samuel, from the story of Samuel; \u2018Here am I, send me.\u2019\u201d Early dreams of becoming an airline pilot dissolved into a love for the church that led him to ministry and, ultimately, to the Diocese of Los Angeles where he has served two congregations and as an assisting bishop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ve been on a journey. It wasn\u2019t something like what happened to St. Paul, a sudden thing, but more a systematic development and growth of faith and interest in the life of the church.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n After undergraduate studies in sociology and urban development at St. Patrick\u2019s College in Karachi, he was set to attend seminary at the Near East School of Theology in Beirut, Lebanon, when war broke out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead, he went to Trinity Theological College in Singapore where he met Khushnud Mussarat, also a theology student.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ordained in the Diocese of Los Angeles in 2009, she is the vicar of St. George\u2019s Church in Riverside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After his 1980 ordination to the priesthood, Azariah served as curate of St. Andrew\u2019s, Karachi, which he humorously calls a testament to \u201cchurch unity.\u201d The mostly Methodist congregation met in a formerly Scottish Lutheran Church and was led by an Anglican. In 1987, he was elected Bishop of Raiwind and 10 years later became the Church of Pakistan\u2019s moderator, for the first of two terms as its presiding bishop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He has also served as bishop-in-charge of St. Clare\u2019s, Rancho Cucamonga, where Canon Gisele Tackoor remembers his upbeat sermons, pastoral sensitivity, hopeful encouragement and steady guidance as the congregation merged with St. Mark\u2019s Church in Upland in 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe was warm, kind, gentle, interesting, had a good sense of humor, was classy. I can\u2019t say enough good things about him,\u201d recalls Tackoor, who was senior warden at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe was delightful to be around and we all looked forward to seeing him when he would return from his duties in Pakistan. We didn\u2019t know he was an archbishop until much later.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Currently, Azariah calls St. Peter\u2019s Church, Rialto, a \u201chome base\u201d and serves there as bishop-in-charge on Sundays when he isn\u2019t visiting congregations on behalf of Bishop Diocesan John Harvey Taylor. He describes it as a lively, lovely and growing congregation with lots of possibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe gives me a lot of opportunity to learn and grow,\u201d said St. Peter\u2019s associate priest, the Rev. Barrett Van Buren.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s been a great experience working with him. He loves the church. He loves the community and he\u2019s dedicated to making sure the people\u2019s needs are met. And the people love him. They enjoy his charisma, his interest, his passion and his wit. He\u2019s got a great sense of humor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Serving among the extremely impoverished and the persecuted taught him \u201cfaith in the very simple things,\u201d and the importance of unity, according to Azariah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With compassion and humility, he built bridges with those trapped in the sex industry, women who initially balked even at meeting with him for fear of condemnation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey were mostly Christian women (and often) \u2026 circumstances had forced them into a situation of that nature. But God wouldn\u2019t want them to starve,\u201d Azariah said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The nation\u2019s constitution bars Christians and other non-Muslim minorities from holding political office, even from employment beyond menial labor. They are frequent targets of blasphemy laws and physical attacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He recalled invitations to dinner with parishioners, mostly in tiny, windowless mud houses \u201clike a box. Animals were also there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n On one such occasion, \u201cdinner was a glass of water and one boiled egg.\u201d On another, the meal was a piece of warm chapatti, a pita-like bread, with garlic, lemon and mustard oil to drizzle over it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And yet, Azariah said: \u201cI felt so good about it. It was not what I was eating or drinking. It was the love I was getting, the great faith I got which was amazing beyond my expectations. I\u2019ve experienced the faith in very simple things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once, when he was hosting Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie, an elderly, bent-over woman motioned to Azariah to tell Runcie to bow to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The people \u201chad never seen a white archbishop of Canterbury and he had arrived in a big car with a police escort.\u201d When Runcie bowed, the elderly woman laid hands on his head and blessed him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe cried,\u201d Azariah recalled. \u201cHe said, \u2018nobody has done this ever to me. I have laid my hands on many people. But this mother has laid her hands on me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Establishing two schools for the mentally challenged \u2014 Dar-ul-Kushnud (home of Happiness) in Karachi, serving 150 students and another in Lahore, Dar-ul-Mussarat (happiness) \u2014 was inspired by a mentally challenged sister-in-law, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And the schools themselves were an inspiration, successfully training many students thought incapable of learning. That ministry taught Azariah the beauty of simple, direct, honest love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe learned a lot. The thing we learned from these children was honesty,\u201d he said. \u201cWe learned to see the real divinity inside them. They are very loving.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Similarly, he built bridges among the most unlikely of groups, creating a weeklong retreat connecting radical Muslim clerics with Christian clergy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere is a lot of religious prejudice,\u201d he said. \u201cWe cannot eat in the same place. We cannot stay in the same place.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And yet the group found commonalities in prayer, meals and conversation. So much so that now, \u201cwhenever we as Christians have difficulty and problems in our community, some of these religious leaders would help us. It was a step forward in our understanding of the new commandment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He even resorted to real-life cloak-anddagger tactics to spirit a youngster out of the country to safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What began as a disagreement between two 10-year-olds quickly escalated into a death sentence. One was the son of a Muslim cleric. The other was a Christian. They fought, and the Christian youngster was charged, found guilty of blasphemy and sentenced to death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI was so emotional when it happened,\u201d Azariah recalled. \u201cI talked to him and said, we will see what we can do to help you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And he said to me, \u2018Bishop Sammy, why are you worried? If we have to die for Jesus Christ, we will die.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n After an appeal, a higher court acquitted the youth. Azariah, fearful the boy could still be targeted and possibly even killed, arranged to fly him out of the country. But the pilot refused to fly them, and Azariah found someone to drive him instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe was released in the middle of the night,\u201d he recalled. \u201cThe driver drove like a madman. We changed cars, bribed police, drove 300 miles the same night. As we passed the village where the young boy\u2019s mother lived, he wanted to stop and say goodbye to her. But we weren\u2019t able to. We took him and his uncle to Islamabad and got them out of the country the next day.\u201d Sometimes, on pastoral visits to congregation, he is asked about the contextual differences between the Pakistan and U.S. churches, regarding sexual orientation, and issues including women\u2019s empowerment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Regarding sexual orientation, he believes: \u201cLet God decide. Who are we to decide what is sin? God is not bothered with who\u2019s sleeping with whom. I doubt that is God\u2019s main agenda at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In July, he and Khushnud will celebrate 40 years of marriage and ministry together. They are both supportive and proud of the accomplishments of the couple\u2019s three daughters: Anushua, a mental health therapist; Arusa, a certified public accountant, and Abana, a medical resident specializing in brain injury and rehabilitative medicine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He shares a video he has just received via email. Secretly taped, it shows an attack on a priest during a worship service in the Church of South India. As the priest leads worship, a man assaults him. Bloodied but undeterred, the priest simply turns the other cheek, and continues to lead worship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Learning not to fear persecution has also been a lesson of his decades of ministry, Azariah said. \u201cWe were not scared of it anymore,\u201d he said. \u201cIt also helped us understand the importance of loving our neighbor in spite of pain and hatred. We learned we have to win them over with love.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Grateful for the welcome and support he and his family have received in the Southland, he hopes Episcopalians here know of the faithfulness of their Pakistani counterparts \u2014 that \u201cin our poverty, in our marginalization, in our hunger, we have done the best and contributed the most for our national development, the development of the wider community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The population of the schools they started is about 80 percent Muslim students, he said. Because of unjust laws, \u201cwe\u2019ve kept our children uneducated, and educated their children. We\u2019ve kept our children undernourished and taken care of their children through our institutions of charity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mostly, he wants the Docese of Los Angeles and others to know that Christians elsewhere in the world \u201care a long-suffering community. We have to recognize it. We cannot sugarcoat it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Supporting Pakistani Muslims who are in the minority here is a two-way street, he believes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe must tell them, we fight for you, we stand for you, and we want you to tell your loved ones back, that they should fight for non-Muslims there. We cannot continue the sin of silence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, he joyfully leads worship, visits congregations on behalf of Bishop Taylor, and is preparing for an upcoming visit by Bishop Suffragan Diane Jardine Bruce. He hopes to learn what Southland Episcopalians have to teach him, adding: \u201cMy life, my passion, commitment, joy, hope and my challenge is the church.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Bishop Samuel Sammy Robert Azariah is a Pakistani Anglican Bishop. Early life Azariah studied at St. Paul’s High School and at St. Patrick’s College, in Karachi. He completed his Honours in Sociology at the University of Karachi, in 1971. Ecclesiastical career He was ordained a deacon of the Church of Pakistan in 1979 and as a priest in 1980. He served first as curate at St. Andrew’s Church, in Karachi, to serve mainly his small English language congregation. He later became Rector, which he was until 1987. He taught duringRead More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31803,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[472],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bishop-samuel-azariah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/masihitv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/masihitv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/masihitv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masihitv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masihitv.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31802"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/masihitv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31802\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32885,"href":"https:\/\/masihitv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31802\/revisions\/32885"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masihitv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/masihitv.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masihitv.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masihitv.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Latest since June 27, 2018<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/masihitv.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/JHT-Azariahs-McCarthy_md.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/li>
\u2018Who I am\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018What my background is\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Where my faith is based\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018How my faith has grown\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Ministry with passion\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n