City honours 100-year-old priest

Cumberbatch, who served as a priest for 67 years, celebrated his 100th birthday on September 17.

Cumberbatch said he was delighted to be honoured and he was blessed to be among family and good friends.

“I am happy to be among all of you and I appreciate this honour,” he said, after receiving a plaque from Mayor Brown, in recognition of his 67th anniversary of priestly ordination and in celebration of his 100th birthday.

Cumberbatch was 30 years old in 1939, when he responded to God’s call and entered Codrington Theological College in Barbados. Two years later, on August 6, 1941, he was ordained to the Diaconate and remained in Barbados until his ordination to the priesthood by Bishop Hand, in Antigua, on June 29, 1942. For six years he served in that island and in Belize.

In 1948, Father Cumberbatch returned home and was Rector of St Patrick’s parish in Tobago for six years. He then served at St James the Just (Sangre Grande) for four years and St Mary’s (Tacarigua) for ten years.

By the time he moved to St Paul’s (San Fernando) in 1968, he had been installed as a Canon in the Stall of St Boniface in the Cathedral Chapter of the Holy Trinity Church in 1965.

While serving as Rector of St Paul’s, the Canon received the appointment as Archdeacon of the Diocese of Trinidad and Tobago, in 1969. In 1971 he became rector of St Crispin’s (Woodbrook) and then of Christ Church (Cascade).

From 1979 until he fully retired, the Archdeacon assisted at The Holy Trinity Cathedral, Church of the Epiphany in Morvant, returned to Christ Church and St Crispin’s, and finally at St Margaret’s Belmont.

The Archdeacon Emeritus has been held in high esteem as a Spiritual Director and Retreat Conductor, and while many laity and fellow clergy have been blessed through his counsel, one man who was moved to follow in his footsteps is the Venerable Hollis Peter Lynch, a former Archdeacon of Montego Bay, now serving in the Cayman Islands.