Sanco Rembert

Sanco King Rembert (November 11, 1922–August 14, 2015) was an American Anglican bishop notable for being the first African-American bishop of the Reformed Episcopal Church. Consecrated in 1966 to assist in the REC's Missionary Jurisdiction of the South, he served from 1987 to 1998 as bishop ordinary of the Diocese of the Southeast. Since Rembert, all bishops ordinary in the Diocese of the Southeast have been black.

Biography Rembert was born in 1922, one of 14 children of the Rev. Samuel Edward Rembert and the former Rozella L. Middleton of Pineville, South Carolina. He earned a B.S. in chemistry and mathematics from Benedict College in Columbia, South Carolina, in 1945. He was the founding rector of New Israel Reformed Episcopal Church in Charleston in 1959. In 1970, in conjunction with the southern jurisdiction's preparations for admission as a full synod in the Reformed Episcopal Church, Rembert was elected bishop coadjutor with the right to succeed William Jerdan Jr. as bishop ordinary. At this point, Rembert took on several administrative duties as well as responsibility for episcopal visitations and relationships with clergy, including counseling. In 1979, he reopened Cummins Memorial Theological Seminary, the seminary of the synod that had been temporarily closed. They had two daughters.

Legacy In the Reformed Episcopal Church, Rembert was an advocate of greater racial inclusion. After the Missionary Jurisdiction of the South had been elevated to the status of a synod at the church's 41st General Council in 1975, Rembert noted that there had never been a council sermon delivered by a minister from the predominantly black southern jurisdiction and urged greater participation by Southeastern Reformed Episcopal churchmen in the future.

In 2001, the South Carolina Department of Education honored Rembert in its African-American History Month calendar alongside Merl Code, Tom Feelings, Mamie Johnson, Bill Pinkney, and other notable black South Carolinians.

In 2022, Cummins Seminary honored Rembert by creating the Bishop Sanco K. Rembert Memorial Lecture. Poet and New Testament scholar Bonnie Thurston was the first Rembert lecturer.