by Ariel Miller
A new scholarship fund honors the Rev. Theorphlis Borden, whose ministry to our diocese and the worldwide Anglican Communion sets an irresistible example of a fruitful Christian life. The scholarships powered by your donations open opportunities for students in an array of fields ranging from music to mission, reflecting the extraordinary scope of her accomplishments.
Deacon Top’s leadership in the church began long before she was ordained. She and her family moved to Ohio when she was very young, joining St Simon of Cyrene Episcopal Church in Lincoln Heights, one of the diocese’s four historically Black congregations. Attending St. Simon’s School, a ministry of the Sisters of the Transfiguration, she built lifelong friendships with the sisters. Top went on from parochial school to excel at overwhelmingly White institutions, graduating from Wyoming High School and going on to undergraduate study, enrolling first at Miami University then earning her degree from Indiana University.
Starting at a very young age, Top served at St. Simon’s for over 25 years as a worship leader, organist, and choir director while leading a secular career at Xerox. She volunteered as a dynamic team member for diocesan Cursillo retreats, teaching core elements of Christian faith through personal testimony. When The Episcopal Church began reviving the role and leadership of vocational deacons, her pastor, then rector of St. Simon of Cyrene’s, the Rev. Michael Curry, encouraged her to seek ordination.
Earning her theological degree from the Episcopal Theological Seminary in Kentucky, Top was ordained in 1991, becoming the first Black woman deacon in our diocese.
Top’s poise and competence demolished any walls that would have boxed in her vocation as a minister to the entire church. She served on diocesan Budget and Evangelism committees, and on National and World Mission Commissions, the Board of Examining Chaplains, and the Committee for the Diaconate. She was a chaplain first to the Southern Ohio Lay Leadership Institute (SOLLI), and subsequently to the retired clergy of the diocese.
Top shone as Gospeler at major diocesan liturgies. Processing to the heart of the congregation, she would lift the Gospel Book with regal and commanding grace. A hush of anticipation would fall over the assembly. Then, her thrilling voice rang out as she proclaimed the Good News.
When her dear friend Michael Curry was elected as the 27th Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church, he invited Top to serve as Deacon of the Table at his consecration on All Saints Day, 2015, at the National Cathedral.
Bishop Thompson first assigned Top to serve as deacon with Trinity Episcopal Church in Hamilton in the heart of a predominantly White, working-class, Appalachian city. She next served with four priests in succession at Ascension and Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in suburban Wyoming, welcomed by friends from high school and making many more. While continuing her secular career at the Lincoln Heights Health Center, Top built profound pastoral relationships with parishioners who turned to her in crisis and pain. She won esteem as a Christian educator, from weekly Bible Study to leading adults from several parishes through the Disciples Course, a rigorous three-year study of the entire Bible. Eager to learn more of the roots of our faith, she joined a diocesan clergy pilgrimage to the Holy Land and retraced the journeys of St. Paul on a trip of the Community of the Transfiguration.
True to her diaconal vows, Top invited parishioners to transcend their comfort zone by offering them practical ways to contribute to solutions to community suffering. This included writing letters to encourage the Ohio Legislature to close terrible gaps in Medicaid coverage for uninsured children, and volunteering to read to children in the waiting room at the Health Center to nurture their love of books. Top called on the congregation to pray and bake thousands of cookies for prisoners and their families when she served on the teams for Kairos retreats in Ohio prisons.
Consider this symmetry: well-heeled people calling Top to help them in their time of deepest need, and her inviting them in turn to write to inmates to alleviate their loneliness.
Top also helped launch the parish’s prayer shawl ministry which continues to this day and has brought consolation to countless people in the community in times of illness and duress.
During an era when many Episcopalians quail at the word “evangelism,” Top is a missionary to her very marrow. She went to Nigeria with Bishop Thompson to learn about the secret sauce of Anglicans’ explosive congregational growth. Later, she amazed and moved her friends by making summer trips to a remote Indigenous village in Alaska. There, this refined woman lived quietly in a rough small house, walking each day to the community’s church to pray, teach, and worship with parishioners who welcomed her as a sister. Returning, she brought back to her suburban parish the sounds, fragrance, and spiritual regeneration she experienced in community with people whose lives are so profoundly different from theirs.
Always stylish and ladylike, she was undaunted by hardship, accompanying a parish delegation to sites of death squad murders in El Salvador and to bless new houses in a rugged mountain community that had been destroyed by the 2001 earthquake. Parishioners from tweens to octogenarians accompanied Top on mission trips to Appalachia, laughing and trading stories while getting grubby as they re-painted a pantry, cleared brush to provide a safety zone around a domestic violence center, learned how to harvest potatoes, and communed with a dairy cow. Top often brought her own teenage granddaughters, and provided unforgettable motherly nurture to the other young people fortunate enough to be on the trip.
From this brief narrative, you can see how Top’s ministry informs this scholarship fund established by her loving family: to help minority students pursue higher education – with a special priority for music and seminary study – and for mission trips. With thanks to God for the ways the Rev. Theorphlis Borden has shown us to live into our Baptismal Vows, please contribute to extend her loving care to the coming generations of the Communion of Saints!
About The Deacon Theorphlis M. Borden Scholarship Fund
Background:
In recognition and honor of Deacon Borden’s service to the Diocese of Southern Ohio, a scholarship fund has been created celebrating her 90 remarkable years of life and service in the ministry. On May 1, 2024, she celebrated 33 years as a deacon in The Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Southern Ohio. She is also recognized as the first African American woman deacon in the diocese. To God be the Glory!
Scholarship Purpose:
Establishment of The Deacon Theorphlis M. Borden Scholarship Fund will support students who fall into the following categories:
- Minority students pursuing higher education;
- Seminary students;
- Students pursuing higher education music majors;
- Funding for student Christian missionary trips.
How to contribute
The donated funds are held and administered within the account of the Minority Empowerment Initiative Trust (MEIT) est.1968 of the Diocese of Southern Ohio.
Note: All contributions are 501(c)(3) tax eligible and your documentation will be sent from the finance office of the Diocese of Southern Ohio.
Contributions can be made directly to:
Diocese of Southern Ohio, Finance Office, 412 Sycamore Street Cincinnati, Ohio 45202.
Attention: Susan Byrnside
Subject line: Deacon Borden Scholarship Fund
Suggested Giving levels inspired by Galatians 5:22-23
(FUNDING GOAL: $90,000 to honor her 90 years of living the Fruits of the Spirit and counting)
Up to $500 Joy
$501- $1500 Peace
$1501-$3000 Patience
$3001- $5000 Kindness
$5001- $10,000 Gentleness
Over $10,000 Love
Thank you for your thoughtfulness and generosity in supporting this worthy cause that will assist deserving students pursue their God given goals and purpose.
Ariel Miller met Top Borden during a Cursillo retreat in the early 1980’s, was a parishioner of Ascension and Holy Trinity throughout Top’s ministry there, and is a member with her of the Ohio-Kentucky Chapter of the Society of the Companions of the Holy Cross.
