The Most Revd. Charles S. J. White of blessed memory
OA, PhD, MA, AB
25 September 1929-13 February 2017

Archbishop Charles served as Sovereign Primate and titular Lord Patriarch of Windsor of the Old Catholic Orthodox Church (2013) within the Abbey-Principality of San Luigi between 2013 and his death in 2017.

After service in the US Navy during the Korean War (National Defense Service Medal), and work in the public relations and advertising fields, he was baptised and confirmed at Adyar, India, in the Liberal Catholic Church, and proceeded to the diaconate (1967) and priesthood (1973) in that church. In 1988, having entered the Catholic Apostolic Church of Antioch, he was consecrated to the episcopate by the late Patriarch Adrian I (Herman Adrian Spruit) and Matriarch Meri Louise Spruit.

Subsequently, he became a part of the developing Continuing Anglican outreach of the Philippine Independent Catholic Church in the United States; an outreach in which the Apostolic Episcopal Church and the late Archbishop Paul G.W. Schultz were also involved. In 1990 he received episcopal consecration from Obispo Maximo Macario V. Ga. The PICC did not succeed in establishing lasting roots in the United States, and in 1994 he was received into the North American Old Roman Catholic Church (which entered intercommunion with the Apostolic Episcopal Church under the late Archbishop Edgar Ramon Verostek, a consecrator of Prince-Abbot Edmond II) and consecrated by Archbishop Joseph Andrew Lawrence Vellone.

He held the B.A. degree in English, With Honor, from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, an M.A. degree in Creative Writing and Latin American Studies, Magna cum Laude, from La Universidad de las Americas in Mexico, and the M.A. degree and the Ph.D. degree, With Distinction, from the University-of-Chicago Divinity School in the History of Religions, emphasizing India and the Hindi language. He published numerous reviews, articles, translations, book chapters, including “Mother Guru: Jnananda of Madras India,” in Unspoken Worlds, Women’s Religious Lives, (three editions) and several books.

He held teaching and visiting lecturer positions at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, the Smithsonian Institute, Wesley Seminary, Lakehead University (Canada), and the University of Hyderabad (India). At The American University, Washington, D.C., he was appointed Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religion in 1971, served two terms as Chairman of the Department of Philosophy and Religion, and from 1995 was Professor Emeritus.