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Rev. Lynn Edwards
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Obituary: Rev. Lynn Edwards / Episcopal priest founded Shepherd Wellness Community

Obituary: Rev. Lynn Edwards / Episcopal priest founded Shepherd Wellness Community

“My destiny in life remained a mystery to me until I heard hints about a strange disease supposedly just affecting gay men. Something stirred inside of me. I always knew, from my teenage years, that I was interested in men rather than women, but I was so far inside the closet that the FBI and CIA together could not have found me. As I reflect on my life, I see how God used this to enable me to have a unique ministry.”

The Rev. Lynn Chester Edwards wrote those words a quarter century after the AIDS epidemic first began to ravage the lives of gay men and others in the 1980s.

Rev. Edwards, who died Monday at age 76, is being remembered as one of the first clergy members in Pittsburgh to openly embrace AIDS patients, who were facing not only sickness but stigma.

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Rev. Edwards and his parish, the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Hazelwood, welcomed people with AIDS. In 1987, they founded Shepherd Wellness Community, a multi-service outreach to people with AIDS, now operating in Bloomfield.

People would “be sick with AIDS before their families even knew they were gay,” said Pittsburgh Episcopal Bishop Dorsey McConnell. Oftentimes, “their families abandoned them.”

Rev. Edwards “wasn’t afraid to touch them. He hugged them, he blessed them,” the bishop said.

And Rev. Edwards presided at countless funerals for victims of AIDS in the years before effective medicines would greatly extend the lives of people with HIV.

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Rev. Edwards, who had battled multiple health problems in the years before his death, was so self-effacing that he insisted there be no eulogy at his funeral, said Bishop McConnell. The funeral is scheduled for 11 a.m. Thursday at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral.

In his written recollection, Rev. Edwards said that in the early years of the AIDS epidemic, he attended an informational meeting of Pitt Men’s Study, a long-running research project into men infected with HIV.

“When I arrived, people were sharing testimonies about what it was like to live with what was then being called HTLV-3 disease,” Rev. Edwards recalled. “They expressed the need for a social place where they could bring their loved ones.”

He was the “only identifiable clergy present,” he recalled, and one of the participants told him: ‘”We also need a place of gentle spirituality.”

He recalled: “I said that I could provide such a place. In hindsight, I figured if any such refuge was a ‘safe place,’ it would be a church.”

“He was one of the most nonjudgmental, compassionate people I have ever met,” said Cynthia Klemanski, president of Shepherd Wellness Community’s board and one of its founders. “He took the call to service very seriously to people who may have been marginalized and stigmatized.”

She recalled a plaque that a Good Shepherd parishioner had crafted for the center, with the words: “In this place, there shall be no outcasts.”

Rev. Edwards started a clothes closet for people with AIDS, many of whom had lost so much weight that they no longer fit their old clothes and couldn’t afford new ones.

He convened regular Friday night dinners for people with AIDS. And he held weekend retreats for them and their loved ones, culminating with services of prayer for healing.

“You didn’t have to be Episcopalian, you just had to be sick, or someone who loved someone who was sick,” the bishop said.

Rev. Edwards recalled the time a caterer for the Christmas party left the food trays outside in the snow rather than come close to people with AIDS.

He wrote that police officers on patrol in Hazelwood originally stocked rubber gloves and suits in their squad cars in case they had to respond to an emergency at the church — but eventually came to accept the participants. When freezing rain fell one Friday night, officers came to the church to caution dinner participants about the icy pavement and even held their arms as they walked out to their cars.

Rev. Edwards’ main concern in recent years was that the public may get complacent about AIDS, which still afflicts many despite great advances in treatment.

A graduate of General Theological Seminary, Rev. Edwards also ministered at St. Matthews of Homestead and Church of the Redeemer in Squirrel Hill and with the group Dignity Pittsburgh.

He was the son of the late Chester and Eleanor M. Edwards. He was the partner of Barry R. Horton.

Peter Smith: petersmith@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1416; Twitter @PG_PeterSmith.

First Published: June 8, 2017, 4:00 a.m.

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