We are saddened to announce the passing of Dr. Robert Moore Strippy in the early morning hours of Wednesday, January 31, 2018 in Richmond, Virginia. He had been recuperating at Manor Care (Brookdale-Imperial Plaza) following a fall the previous week.
Dr. Strippy was the son of the late Clarence G. and Ruth (Moore) Strippy. He spent his early years in Massachusetts, and attended Episcopal Academy in Devon, Pennsylvania. A professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania, he held multiple doctorates, including doctorates of music the Universities of Paris and Rome. In retirement, he was an instructor at the University of Virginia.
In addition to his academic career, “Dr. Bob” worked in advertising in Chicago in the late 1950s and was a speechwriter for President Dwight Eisenhower. In the 1960s, he traveled extensively in Europe and played the organ in a number of great churches and cathedrals, including a time spent studying with renowned French organist Maurice Duruflé.
Dr. Bob’s career also had its serendipitous moments such as his role in the making of “The Abominable Dr. Phibes”, a 1971 British comedy horror film directed by Robert Fuest and starring Vincent Price and Joseph Cotten. The music that Phibes (Price) plays on the organ at the beginning of the film is “War March of the Priests” from Felix Mendelssohn’s incidental music to Racine’s play Athalie. The organ used was the grand New York Paramount theater organ, now in the Century II Center in Wichita, Kansas. The actual organist was none other than Dr. Robert Moore Strippy, then of Chicago!
Dr. Strippy was a devoted, traditional Anglican catholic. Recognizing the coming disintegration of the Protestant Episcopal, Dr. Strippy wrote extensively to sound a call to action. In the 1976 work A House Divided by Fr. Robert Harvey, Strippy provided a cogent and prescient analysis of the destructive result of the impending liberalization and “de-sacramentalization” of the Church. For example, he pointed out that,
[W]hen the question of women’s ordination is settled to the liberals’ satisfaction, they intend to attack the Eucharistic doctrine through a revised liturgy that will have no real meaning, and in which a spiritualist, a Buddhist and an agnostic could participate with equal satisfaction. When so updated, the Eucharist will have ceased to be a representation of Christ’s sacrifice upon the Cross.
He went on to note that, when the Eucharist has been “rearranged” to the liberals’ satisfaction, “[t]hey will then take their second step in the updating of Christian initiation. They will attack the doctrine of baptism by contending that it is untrue that humanity is excluded from God’s family unless they are baptized. The liberals will then replace Jesus’ doctrine with their own: that the entire universe is covered by a baptism of desire, and that physical baptism is superfluous.” This is precisely what has occurred.
Dr. Strippy served a delegate to the 1977 Congress of St. Louis, an international gathering of nearly 2,000 Anglicans united in their rejection of theological changes introduced by the Anglican Church of Canada and by the Episcopal Church in the United States of America in its General Convention of 1976. Indeed, Dr. Strippy was one of several scribes and authors of the Affirmation of St. Louis that would emerge as the basis for “continuing” Anglicanism in the United States. He recalled working around the clock in an hotel room with the late Perry Laukoff to revise and type the edits to the Affirmation as they were sent up from the Debates and discussions in the Congress. Dr. Strippy was always very direct in emphasizing the catholicity of the finished work.
Dr. Strippy relocated to Richmond, Virginia in 2011, where he began to attend St. Alban’s Anglican-Catholic parish and occasionally substitute as organist there. He took an apartment at Imperial Plaza literally around the corner from the parish, and remained a dedicated member, although failing health precluded his regular attendance. He remained a very active member in MENSA.
Dr. Strippy received the Last Rites of the Church from Canon Charles Nalls, Rector of St. Alban’s, on January 31st. No immediate survivors have been located. As soon as funeral arrangements can be made, a requiem Mass will be scheduled at St. Alban’s. Contributions to provide for those arrangements and interment should be made to St. Alban’s Parish, with the annotation “Dr. Strippy Fund”.
“I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith,…”-II Timothy 4:7
May his soul with those of the faithful departed rest in peace, + and May Light Perpetual shine upon him.
The Cathedral Close 