James Theodore Augustus Holly was born a free African American in Washington, D.C., on October 3rd, 1829. Baptized and confirmed in the Roman Catholic Church, he later became an Episcopalian. Holly was ordained as a deacon at St. Matthew’s Church in Detroit on June 17th, 1855, and ordained as a priest by the bishop of Connecticut on January 2nd, 1856. He was then appointed rector of St. Luke’s in New Haven. In the same year he founded the Protestant Episcopal Society for Promoting the Extension of the Church among Colored People, an antecedent of the Union of Black Episcopalians. He became a friend of Frederick Douglass, and the two men worked together on many programs.

In 1861, Holly resigned as rector of St. Luke’s to lead a group of African Americans settling in Haiti. Although his wife, his mother, and two of his children died during the first year, along with other settlers, Holly stayed on with two small sons, proclaiming that just “as the last surviving apostle of Jesus was in tribulation…on the forlorn isle of Patmos, so, by His Divine Providence, [Christ] had brought this tribulation upon me for a similar end on this isle in the Caribbean Sea.” He welcomed the opportunity to speak of God’s love to a people who needed to hear it.

Through an agreement between the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church and the Orthodox Apostolic Church of Haiti, Holly was consecrated a missionary bishop to build the church in Haiti on November 8th, 1874, making him the first African American to be raised to the office of bishop in the Episcopal Church. In 1878, Bishop Holly attended the Lambeth Conference, the first African American to do so, and he preached at Westminster Abbey on St. James’ Day of that year. In the course of his ministry, he doubled the size of his diocese, and established medical clinics where none had been before.

Bishop Holly served the Diocese of Haiti until his death in Haiti on March 13th, 1911. He had charge of the Diocese of the Dominican Republic as well, from 1897 until he died. He is buried on the grounds of St. Vincent’s School for Handicapped Children in Port-au-Prince.