His Eminence, Most Rev. Archbishop Hilarion Robert Loyd Williams

Robert Lloyd Williams was born November 12, 1942 and died January 5, 2019 at the age of 76. He was a very precocious kid, who read voraciously, and had early interests in biology and chemistry. In August of 1963 he married Phyllis Jackson and they had one child, Morgen Amber Williams. The couple divorced around 1966. Robert worked as a psychiatric nurse at the Austin State Hospital for a few years during this time.

In late 1966 or early 1967 Robert became poetry editor for ARX magazine, a small press literary magazine in Austin, Texas. ARX was published monthly for about three years. The magazine published many people from all over the country, but Texas talent included Archibald Henderson, Judson Crews, Albert Huffstickler, Robert Bonazzi, Naomi Shihab Nye, Vassar Miller, and many others.

Late in 1968 Robert went to work as a store clerk at the Horizons Unlimited Metaphysical Bookstore, which was in an old house at 11th and West Avenue. In less than a year he had become store manager. The owner of the store, one Carl Bowers, was a Liberal Catholic priest, and Robert encouraged him to start a chapel in the large back room of the house. Carl Bowers died after mass on Sunday, August 23, 1970. Before the end of the year, Robert Williams was ordained as a priest in the Liberal Catholic Church and took over the St. Hilarion's parish, as the church had become known.

The church grew, moved to West Mary Street in South Austin, changed its name to Holy Name of Mary, and changed its affiliation to the Old Catholic Church of Canada. Robert was consecrated as a bishop and became affiliated with the Western Rite Orthodox Church in the United States, and eventually became Archbishop for Texas of the Autonomous Orthodox Metropolia of Western Europe and the Americas.

In 2007 Robert Williams earned his master's degree in anthropology and was graduate student of the year at Texas State University. Upon completing his master's degree, Robert entered the University of Texas at Austin where he was honored to study with Linda Schele. In the Fall of 2009 Robert earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree at the University of Texas at Austin. His major was anthropology, with minors in art history and ethnography. He served as adjunct professor in the Department of Anthropology at Texas State University, where he specialized in the pre-Hispanic historical literature of the ancient Mixtec people of Oaxaca until his retirement in 2016.

Robert wrote two books, including Lord Eight Wind of Suchixtlan and the Heroes of Ancient Oaxaca: Reading History in the Codex Zouche-Nuttall and The Complete Codex Zouche-Nuttall: Mixtec Lineage Histories and Political Biographies. He had hoped to write a third book, but was unable to complete it before his death.

Over his long life Robert touched the lives of many people who still remember his kindness, compassion, and delightful sense of humor.

Robert is survived by his daughter Morgen Amber Hughes and his grandson Marcus Joel Hughes.