Sunday, June 4, is Wear Orange Sunday in honor of victims and survivors of gun violence.
It is also the day the Rt. Rev. Deon Johnson, bishop of the Diocese of Missouri, will make his yearly visit to the Church of the Holy Cross at 420 N. Main St. The congregation and the bishop will wear orange for his visit.
“As people of faith who follow Jesus, we are called to seek after justice and to walk alongside the brokenhearted,” Johnson said in a statement to the congregation. “We can best do this in our own day by advocating for common sense gun laws, by standing with those who have lost their lives, their livelihoods, and their loved ones to the scourge of gun violence.”
The tradition of wearing orange to bring awareness to gun violence was started in 2013, when 15 year-old Hadiya Pendleton marched in President Barak Obama’s second inaugural parade and was killed a week later at a playground in Chicago. Her friends and family began to wear hunter orange in commemoration of her, according to material released by the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri
“With the simple act of wearing orange we declare that we all have been and continue to be affected by gun violence,” said the bishop. “And we pledge to be a part of the change toward the realization of a time where we will ‘beat our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks … and study war no more.’”
A native of Barbados who immigrated to America at the age of 14, Johnson studied at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Master of Divinity degree from The General Theological Seminary in New York, New York, and served as a priest at Christ Episcopal Church in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Brighton, Michigan. He was ordained as the 11th Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri on June 13, 2020, according to the diocesan website.
Current Supply Priest to Holy Cross, Father Paul Nancarrow of Rector, Arkansas, met Johnson in 2022.
“He is such a warm and engaging person, so full of enthusiasm for the church community,” he said. “He makes everyone feel they really matter to the mission of God in the world.”
Nancarrow invites anyone interested in meeting the bishop or participating in Wear Orange Sunday to come to service at 9:30 a.m. June 4.
“We welcome to Holy Cross anyone who wishes to pray and work for peace and well-being among us,” he said.
Orange ribbons for those without orange to wear will be provided by Holy Cross.
Twelve-year-old Johnny Dikomite of Doniphan joined the congregation after meeting Johnson on his visit to Holy Cross in 2022. Since then, Dikomite has undergone training as an acolyte. He will be baptized and confirmed by Johnson during the June 4 visit.
“I felt it was a welcoming community,” he said about joining the congregation. “They were accepting of all genders and sexualities.”
Dikomite will wear an orange ribbon on his white acolyte’s cassock when he carries the cross and leads the bishop in procession to the altar this year.