An ox stands before an altar with a burning fire on one side and a plow standing ready for work on the other in the image at the center of the Seal of the Diocese of Georgia. On a banner below the image is the Latin phrase that was the personal motto for the first Bishop of Georgia, Stephen Elliott, Jr., “in utrumque paratus agere et pati,” meaning literally “always ready for either action or sacrifice,” which was translated into the documents of this Diocese as, “Always ready to worship and serve.”
Elliott saw himself as that ox ready to do whatever God demanded of him. The seal shows two dates with 1733 noting the arrival of the first Anglican priest along with Georgia’s first colonists and 1823 as the date the Diocese of Georgia was organized with three parishes. The Diocese would not elect Elliott as our first bishop and gain the seal he created until 1841 when the diocese comprised the requisite six congregations needed to organize formally.
In his 1845 address to convention, Bishop Elliott named six candidates for Holy Orders who he would ordain during the meeting. He added, “The great mistake into which our young Clergymen fall, is in expecting great results to follow immediately from their labours, forgetting that in all Missionary work, the seed must be sown in tears, before they can return with joy, bringing their sheaves with them. No man will do anything for the Church in Georgia who does not come imbued with the motto of its Episcopal seal: ‘In utrumque paratus, agree et pati’—and that long and patiently. Hard work, small reward and the harvest for your successors are all that we can offer. But then what you achieve will be your own work, for you will have no other man’s foundation to build upon.”
Bishop Elliott would repeat the motto in later addresses to convention, always as a rallying cry to the patient, steady work needed to advance the Gospel in Georgia saying that “a harvest will come, though his successor may reap the fruits of it.”
This seal is commonly found on all of the documents of the Diocese of Georgia from the mid 1800s through 1971. It is still found in needlepoint cushions for some of the Bishop’s chairs in our churches and is in stained glass at Christ Church Frederica on Saint Simons Island. Since April 1971, we have had both the seal and a coat of arms as authorized symbols for the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia.
Pictured above: Original diocesan seal (above) and the seal in All Saints Chapel in Sewanee (below).
