In something as simple as a light bulb or as complex as a heating system that warms parishioners in a cavernous sanctuary, Bishop Bud Cederholm saw ways to better serve God by lessening the impact each church had on the environment.
“If we do our share, there is hope for the earth,” he told the Globe in 2008.
As bishop suffragan of the Massachusetts Episcopal Diocese, the Right Rev. Roy F. Cederholm — who always went by Bud — made environmental stewardship a calling for the state’s Episcopalians and for other houses of worship through his work with the nonprofit Massachusetts Interfaith Power & Light.
“There is a realization that church buildings are a prime place where energy is wasted; they’re old, inefficient, and small meetings are held in large heated rooms,” he said in 2008, seven years after being elected bishop suffragan. “I think people understand that it’s within our abilities to do something, and interest is growing exponentially.”
Bishop Cederholm, who turned to the Episcopal priesthood after health issues prevented him from serving in the Navy, was 79 when he died of myelodysplastic syndrome Aug. 27 in Benchmark Senior Living at Forge Hill in Franklin, where he lived with his wife, Ruth Ann.
He was known as “the Green Bishop — capital G, capital B,” said Bishop Alan M. Gates of the Episcopal Diocese.
Bishop Cederholm’s attention to helping churchgoers become more aware of climate change concerns “emanated from his pastoral heart,” Gates said. “Creation care mattered because environmental degradation hurts God’s people. It wasn’t an abstract issue of justice. It was a concrete matter of concern to the people of God.”
In 2010, Bishop Cederholm launched the Green Grants Initiative, which helped provide funding for churches to address everything from using energy-efficient light bulbs to installing solar panels to overhauling antiquated heating systems, many of which used a single thermostat zone to control heat needs from the smallest office to the high-ceiling sanctuary.
“We talked about it being the pilgrimage to the boiler room,” said Tom Nutt-Powell, who attends All Saints Episcopal parish in Brookline and is a cofounder of Massachusetts Interfaith Power & Light.
Environmental stewardship “was a pilgrimage, a calling,” Nutt-Powell said. “This was a job, just like caring about racial equality or good schools.”
Bishop Cederholm was successful in opening parishioners’ eyes to these issues, he added, because “he always had such a positive and happy way to reach out to people. They listened and responded.”
Serving as bishop suffragan, or assisting bishop, from 2001 to when he retired in 2011, Bishop Cederholm also had an impact beyond environmental leadership.
When he joined in 2001 with M. Thomas Shaw, bishop of the diocese, and Barbara C. Harris, a suffragan bishop, they formed a formidable leadership team.
Shaw, who died in 2014, was a monk who had been part of the Society of St. John the Evangelist monastic community. Harris, who died in 2020, was the first woman consecrated as a bishop in the worldwide Anglican Communion. As a Black woman who was a daughter of a steelworker and a church organist, she also played an iconic role in a denomination that historically has been predominantly white and affluent.
In the diocesan leadership, Bishop Cederholm “was the parish priest bishop,” Gates said.
Bishop Cederholm started out as associate rector of St. Stephen’s Church in Cohasset. He then was rector of St. Paul’s Church in White River Junction, Vt., from 1976 to 1989, and rector of Christ Church in Needham from 1989 until he was elected bishop suffragan in late 2000.
“It was clear that the diocese and the clergy needed someone with a deep experience and affinity for the parishes,” Gates said.
Speaking with the Globe in 2000, Bishop Cederholm said that “mission and ministry happen at the congregation and grass-roots level. I want to be a source of support and growth for the clergy, as well as congregations.”
In a diverse diocese, he said, “we need to be able to serve the common goals of establishing the gospel of peace and justice for a variety of different people and different settings.”
Born in Brockton on July 1, 1944, Roy Frederick Cederholm Jr. was the older of two siblings. Their father, Roy Sr., was a trust officer at a bank. Their mother, Roberta Lucas Cederholm, was a homemaker.
His parents, Bishop Cederholm said in a 2001 interview with The Episcopal Times, the diocesan newspaper, “had instilled a great open-mindedness and gentleness in me toward other people. Church was a place for prayer and helping others.”
After graduating from high school, he went to the University of Minnesota on an ROTC scholarship, intending to serve in the Navy, but was discharged after developing an ulcer.
As a high school senior, he had started dating Ruth Ann Lyon, the daughter of Rev. Walter Lyon, rector of Trinity Church in Randolph.
With the Navy no longer an option, he asked Walter about becoming an Episcopal priest. Laughing at the memory, Bishop Cederholm told the Episcopal Times that Walter responded: “If you can’t do anything else, you might consider it!”
Bishop Cederholm married Ruth Ann in 1966, the year he graduated from Boston University with a bachelor’s degree in math.
He taught high school math and attended Bexley Hall seminary in Rochester, N.Y. He was ordained to the diaconate in 1971 and to the priesthood in 1972.
While serving as rector at St. Paul’s Church, Bishop Cederholm cofounded The Haven. Initially an emergency shelter in White River Junction, the nonprofit agency now provides food and shelter services along with other community outreach.
“He was super dedicated to our mom,” said Bishop Cederholm’s son Daniel of Salem, and as a father “he seemed to be the most patient person that we’ve known. I don’t know how he did it. It was part of his core.”
As he devoted time to his family, and in recent years to grandchildren, Bishop Cederholm also “had an awesome sense of humor — goofy, to be honest,” said his other son, Matthew of Franklin. “He loved the funny things in life.”
In addition to his wife and two sons, Bishop Cederholm leaves his sister, Wendy Watt of Raynham, and five grandchildren.
A funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. Friday in Christ Church in Needham.
Though Bishop Cederholm left a significant environmental stewardship legacy, he also joined the diocesan leadership in addressing charged political matters.
In June 2003, before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the state’s same-sex marriage ban was unconstitutional, Bishop Cederholm, Shaw, and Bishop Gayle Harris (who succeeded Bishop Barbara Harris) advocated against a legislative bill that would have restricted the definition of marriage in Massachusetts to the union of one man and one woman.
He and Shaw also warned in a Globe op-ed that the Catholic Church hierarchy’s harsh words about gay men, suggesting that they were more likely to molest children, would “create a dangerous atmosphere in which hate crimes flourish.”
For many New England Episcopalians, the enduring memory of Bishop Cederholm is of him smiling and playing guitar, especially at church summer camps, where he would lead the singing.
“Nowhere was he happier than teaching folks a new song while playing his guitar,” Gates said. “He was a really remarkable servant.”
Bryan Marquard can be reached at bryan.marquard@globe.com.