Metropolitan of Ontario

Bishop Renison was elected Metropolitan of the Ecclesiastical Province of Ontario. The Metropolitan is the Archbishop in a given Ecclesiastical Province.  An Ecclesiastical Province is an administrative and geographic division in the Anglican Church made up of several dioceses. The Province of Ontario was created in 1912 and consists of seven Dioceses:  Algoma, Huron, Moosonee, Niagara, Ontario, Ottawa, and Toronto. The province stretches from east of Kingfisher Lake in Ontario in the west, to the border of the Quebec and Montreal Dioceses in the east, to the border between Ontario and Nunavut in the north, and to Windsor, Ontario in the south. The Installation Service, installing Archbishop Renison as Metropolitan of Ontario, was on June 9th, 1952 at Christ’s Church Cathedral in Hamilton, Ontario. Archbishop Renison had a strong attachment to Hamilton, having acted as Rector of the Church of the Ascension from Easter 1912 until April 1927, when he became Rector at Christ Church in Vancouver, British Columbia. While he was Rector at the Church of the Ascension, he met and married his wife, Elizabeth Renison (nee Bristol (1914), and his two sons, Robert John Bristol (1916-1984), and George Everett Bristol (1918-1998) were born. Renison retired on September 8th, 1954 as Metropolitan of Ontario and as Archbishop of Moosonee in his 79th year. He writes that “[He] hoped he might be allowed to end [his] days there. But such a diocese needs youth, vision and drive. These are not the qualities of age and [he] was getting old.” He retired with his wife to Toronto, where he continued to write his column for the Globe and Mail until just before his death.

Archbishop Renison died at the Toronto General Hospital on October 6th, 1957 at the age of 82. His wife Elizabeth died in 1975, and lived to see Renison College named after him. His funeral was held on October 9th at St. Paul’s Church on Bloor St. in Toronto and over 2000 mourners attended.  He continued writing his Globe and Mail column to the end.  In 1959, the new Anglican college in Waterloo; Renison College was named in his honour. His family participated closely in the life of the College in the earlier years and Archbishop Renison’s son, George Renison, served as Chancellor of the College from 1986 to 1992 and Chancellor Emeritus until his death in 1998.


Bishop Renison Digital Exhibit

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