Copyright © 2003 The Episcopal Diocese of East Tennessee

Like a 21st century circuit rider, the Rev. Harry Bahlow serves four Upper East Tennessee parishes. He is rector at St. Columba, Bristol, and St. Thomas, Elizabethton, and he is priest-in-charge at St. Bartholomew, Mountain City, and St. Mary the Virgin, Erwin.

“I’m glad the Lord has given me the strength to do what I do,” he said.

But he does far more than ride and preach. As a pastor, counseling parishioners, making hospital and home visits and taking communion to the homebound, Bahlow brings uncommon efficiency and organization to his churches. He also attends to the churches’ physical plants and landscaping.

“I’m a carpenter, painter and brick layer,” he said. “I like to re-create and refurbish. And we’re free from debt and have money in the bank.”

On a typical Sunday, Bahlow rises at six and goes to meditate at St. Columba, six miles from his home in South Bristol, before 9:30 services there. Leaving parishioners at St. Columba in Bible study with Deacon Ed Osborne, Bahlow drives 15 miles to Elizabethton for the 11:45 service at St. Thomas. Then it’s on the road again — 38 miles to Erwin, where he does office work before the 5 p.m. service for 10 parishioners who worship in a downtown storefront church.

“I have a tremendous devotion to Christ and ... I would never say ‘no’ to an opportunity to say the Eucharist,” he said.

He alternates the Erwin service and a Saturday evening service at St. Bartholomew in Mountain City with the Rev. Wendy Jekabsons, a priest who lives in Johnson City.

“The First United Methodist Church of Mountain City [has] given us permission to use the church, and we have our sign hanging below theirs,” he said. “After the Saturday evening Eucharist, we go to a restaurant for fellowship. That way, we have continuity.”

On Monday evenings he’s either at a vestry meeting at St. Columba or in Erwin for a potluck supper and Bible study. Bahlow conducts weekly healing services at both St. Columba and St. Thomas and leads a book club after the St. Columba service. “With Wendy and Ed working at my side, I can do it,” he said. “And I take Fridays off.”

Bahlow serves St. Mary the Virgin and St. Bartholomew voluntarily. “I’m pastor/rector of two churches and make a love gift for the other two. I’m glad to do it. If I didn’t ... where would they worship? Would they go to the Catholic Church or not at all?” he asked.

He came to Upper East Tennessee in 2000. “A call came from Charlie vonRosenberg, asking me about ‘yoking’ – fusing and sharing parishes. I knew it was a challenge. But it was nothing I was afraid of,” he said.

Bahlow, the seventh child, was adopted by his maternal aunt and her husband when his mother died giving birth. The family moved from Windsor in Ontario, Canada, to Detroit. His uncle, a Lutheran, spoke only German, and his aunt, a Roman Catholic, spoke French. Bahlow learned English attending a neighborhood Polish school.

After earning a bachelor’s degree at Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit and in 1962 a master’s degree in sacred theology at St. John’s Seminary in Plymouth, Mich., Bahlow entered the Roman priesthood in 1962.

“As far back as I can remember, I’ve wanted to be a priest,” he said.

Over the next 10 years, he served four large parishes in the Detroit area. He also worked with the hearing-impaired in the archdiocese. Between 1965 and 1972, he found time for military service as a pilot and chaplain in the reserves.

Bahlow took a leave of absence from the church to work in health care, and he earned a master’s degree in hospital administration from Nova University in Ft. Lauderdale. By 1982, licensed in both Michigan and Florida, he worked as a district manger and trouble-shooter for health-care facilities.

During this time he had left the Roman priesthood. “I felt in my heart I wanted a family life.” In Florida in 1988 Bahlow married Arnetta, a widow with one daughter. “I have been very happy,” he said.

While working in Florida for the Federal Health Care Finance Administration, he met the Episcopal bishop of Southeast Florida, the Rt. Rev. Calvin Schofield, who was a board member of an Episcopal retirement center. “He invited me to come into the Episcopal priesthood. I was received February 5, 1995,” Bahlow said.

He had been rector of St. John’s Church in St. John, Michigan, for two years when the East Tennessee bishop called him to this diocese.

“I am a missioner,” Bahlow said. “I go out and cover cluster churches. I have a lot of people who help me ... I do it with them. I’m a servant of the servants of God.”

In July 1960, the Rev. Donald McKenzie Williamson, a deacon, led his congregation of four adults and six children in Morning Prayer. Worshipers from Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Bristol, Va., joined the tiny group for the service in the basement of the vicarage. The next year construction began for a mission house on hilltop property, and communicants of Emmanuel and St. Columba worked together on the interior. The Rt. Rev. William Sanders dedicated St. Columba in August, 1962. In the late 1960s the two churches were merged for a period of three years — unusual for parishes in separate dioceses. Nearly a dozen priests have served the congregation since then; The Rev. Harry Bahlow was called to be rector in February 2000.

St. Thomas, Elizabethton, Tenn.
Founded: 1892
Eucharist: Sundays, 11:45 a.m.
Bible study: Sundays, 11 a.m.
Healing service: Thursdays, 5:30 p.m.
Rector in office: Tuesdays and Thursdays

In 1892, Calvary Episcopal Church was founded in Elizabethton, and its members met in homes, in the municipal building and in a Methodist Church. Records are lost until 1930, when the chaplain at the Veteran’s Administration in Johnson City re-established Calvary Mission. In 1941, Episco-palians rented then eventually purchased the present church building, a former Methodist Church, whose nave and chancel were built in 1861 of native clay fired at the site. Membership fluctuated during the years of World War II. After the church lost its resident priest in 1969, a series of resident and non-resident vicars served the church. In 1988, fire gutted the nave and chancel. The next year Bishop Sanders consecrated the renovated church. The Rev. Harry Bahlow came to St. Thomas in 2000 as its 17th vicar.

St. Mary the Virgin, Erwin, Tenn.
Founded: 2000
Eucharist: Sundays, 5 p.m.
Potluck supper: first Mondays, 6 p.m.
Bible study: 2nd, 3rd and 4th Mondays, 6 p.m.
Priest in office: Sunday afternoons

St. Mary the Virgin began Christmas Eve, 2000, as the Rev. Harry Bahlow celebrated the Eucharist in the Centenary Methodist Church using the Methodist prayer book, with the bishop’s permission. Four Episco-palians were present. The name was selected as one not currently in use in the diocese. The eight to 10 members moved the church to the Unicoi Methodist Church for one year, then they rented the present storefront. Membership now stands at about 20.

St. Bartholomew’s Church, Mountain City, Tenn.
Meets at First United Methodist Church
Founded: 1946
Eucharist: Saturdays at 6 p.m., with fellowship dinner afterward

The Episcopal Church of Johnson County has been known through the years as St. John’s Preaching Station or St. John’s Mission. The little church, which had been served by priests from St. Thomas in Elizabethton, had disbanded until a visit by then-Bishop Robert Tharp. The Rev. Michael Doty reopened the church, naming it St. Bartholomew. It was closed again until the Rev. Harry Bahlow, rector of St. Thomas, reopened it as its vicar in 2000.