Canon Sharpe graduated magna cum laude from Wofford College and was Phi Beta Kappa at Duke University’s Divinity School, where he earned a doctorate. He received a research fellowship at Oxford University and a Humanities Fellow NEH grant at Cambridge University. He is the retired curator of rare books at Duke, where he also served as academic librarian for research affairs and held other academic positions.

Bishop Edmund Browning, representing Bishop Tom Fraser, ordained Sharpe deacon on Nov. 18, 1973, at the Parish Church of Christ the King in Frankfurt, Germany. He was ordained priest by Bishop Tom Fraser, Bishop of North Carolina, on June 22, 1974, at Church of the Good Shepherd in Raleigh. His first assignment as a parish curate was in the Church of St Peter and St Paul, near Cambridge, England. During his academic career, Fr. Sharpe served a variety of Episcopal Church parishes in temporary assignments. He is now a priest in the Diocese of the Holy Cross, Columbia, S.C. and was installed as Canon Theologian of the Diocese on May 8, 2016. He was appointed to this position by the Right Rev. Paul Hewett, Diocesan Bishop.

Father Sharpe’s lifelong interest in books and history led him to an interesting career studying some of the earliest books: Coptic Christian books, preserved in the dry desert air of Egypt. He has written and lectured widely on these books and other rare documents.