Bishop C.M. Bailey, leader of United House of Prayer for All People, dies at age 73

Bishop C.M. Bailey – a national religious leader whose building campaign for affordable housing helped define his church’s mission – has died.

Bailey, who presided over the United House of Prayer for All People’s 137 U.S. congregations, including six in the Augusta area, was 73.

The bishop spent 56 years in the ministry, and the past 15 years as UHOP’s leader, spiritual advisor and sole trustee, the church said in a statement.  He died Aug. 11. Funeral arrangements have not yet been finalized.

Bailey’s rise in the church included stints as pastor for Augusta UHOP congregations on East Boundary Street and at the ornate regional Motherhouse on Wrightsboro Road. Other area UHOP congregations are on Augusta’s Nellieville Road and in Harlem, Dearing and Waynesboro.

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Sixteen UHOP churches operate in Georgia, 26 other U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

Under Bailey’s leadership, UHOP helped oversee the 2016 construction of Bailey Place Augusta, a complex of homes and apartments in the city’s Bethlehem neighborhood on the 1200 block of Wrightsboro Road.

UHOP has built and maintains similar housing developments in Baltimore, Boston, Charlotte, N.C., Philadelphia and New York City’s Harlem neighborhood.

Bailey was just the fourth national leader for the nondenominational Christian organization in its 104-year history. He ascended to UHOP’s bishopric in 2008 after the death of Bishop Dr. S.C. Madison.

UHOP should not be confused with the unaffiliated House of Prayer Christian Church, which was implicated in 2022 in a $22 million scheme to defraud military veterans.

This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Former Augusta pastor who became leader of United House of Prayer dies