The Reverend Wiliam Howard Melish was an 20th-century American Episcopalian and social leader, driven from his Brooklyn church in the 1950s during McCarthyism in a decade-long controversy by the Episcopalian bishop of Long Island due to his association with the USSR and CPUSA.
In 1935, Melish began his ministry at Christ Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1938, he joined his father as assistant rector at the Holy Trinity Church in Brooklyn. Melish served as assistant rector from 1938 to 1958; his father was rector there from 1904 until his ouster in 1949.
Mr. Melish's chairmanship of the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship led both him and his father into a "bitter struggle" in the 1940s and 1950s that divided their parish as the council wound up on the Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations in December 1947. Melish immediately and publicly opposed the list, telling the New York Times that:
the National Council... "was prepared to fight through the courts any such imputation of our loyalty... We are American citizens who stand for good relations between the United States and the Soviet Union as the key to peace... It has always been the right of American citizens under the Constitution to discuss and, if need be, criticize the foreign policy of the United States.
US Senator Joseph McCarthy investigated Melish as chairman of the council. In 1957, Bishop James P. DeWolfe of the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island closed the Holy Trinity Church in Brooklyn in 1957 and ousted Melish, who had taken over from his father in 1949. The bishop closed the church until a new congregation claimed it as "St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church."
''Rector, Holy Trinity v. Melish''
The rector, church wardens, and vestrymen of the Church of the Holy Trinity in Brooklyn sued Melish and his father to leave; they refused. On June 24, 1957, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, Second Department, found in favor of the church. On March 26, 1958, the Supreme Court of Kings County, New York, heard Rector, Holy Trinity v. Melish. Hubbell and Davies represented the plaintiffs; Raphael H. Weissman and Hubert T. Delaney represented Melish. The supreme court found in favor of the plaintiffs. The case received press coverage, including Life magazine.
Later life
After his ouster, Melish and his wife both visited the Soviet Union six times. In 1963, Melish delivered an address at the memorial for W.E.B. DuBois. In 1969, Melish became rector of Grace Episcopal Church Complex for a decade until he retired in 1979. He then returned to his Brooklyn church as an assisting priest until he died. In 1971, Melish again became chairman of the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship until 1978.
Melish married Mary Jane Dietz; they had three sons. Melish advocated civil rights. He also advocated peaceful co-existence with the USSR, which in July 1948 formed part of the foreign plank of the platform of the Progressive Party. Melish lived in the Boerum Hill section of Brooklyn, New York. Melish died age 76 on June 15, 1986, in Brooklyn.
