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 Protest…