William C. Frey

William Carl "Bill" Frey (February 26, 1930 - October 11, 2020) was an American Episcopal bishop. He served as missionary bishop of the Episcopal Church (United States) for the Episcopal Diocese of Guatemala and later as bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado. He was an Evangelical and was considered a moderate theological conservative. He supported women's ordination but opposed active homosexuality. Ecclesiastical career He was ordained to the priesthood in 1956 in the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado. He held a BA in Spanish and a minor in French from the University of Colorado, and a Master of Divinity from the Philadelphia Divinity School. He became a missionary in Latin America in 1962 and was consecrated as missionary bishop of the Diocese of Guatemala in 1967. In 1971 he and his family were evicted from that country for making public statements about peacemaking during an undeclared civil war. His books The Dance of Hope (2010) and Cancelada: Why They Threw us out of Guatemala (2012), give details about his family's eviction from Guatemala. In 1972 Frey was elected bishop coadjutor of the Diocese of Colorado and then installed as bishop of the diocese the following year. During that time there was a dispute over the use of the Episcopal Church's revised Book of Common Prayer. Frey seized St. Mark's Church, Denver, by downgrading it from a parish to a mission, citing what he described as an inflammatory article by the church's pastor as proof that the priest intended to secede from the diocese, which the priest denied. This was reported to be apparently the first time an Episcopal parish had been dissolved in the United States in a dispute over forms and rites of worship.