Showing 216 results

Robert Brooks was born on March 25, 1947, in Austin, Texas. He received a Bachelor of Arts from St. Edward's University, Austin, in 1970 and a Master of Divinity from the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, California, in 1973. On June 22, 1974, he was ordained into the priesthood.

Brooks began his career as a parish priest at All Saints’ Church in Baytown, Texas, serving from 1973 to 1983, during which time he also earned a Master of Arts from the University of Notre Dame (1980). In the following decades, he championed the church’s sacramental rights and texts, participated in multiple liturgical organizations; advocated for human rights in South America and Africa; and represented The Episcopal Church as Director of Government Relations during the tenure of Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning. He became the rector of St. Paul’s Church in Willimantic, Connecticut in 2001. Even after his retirement in 2004, he continued to advocate for issues of social justice, serving as president of the Episcopal Urban Caucus until just prior to his death.

Canon Brooks died on February 29, 2020.

John Maury Allin was born April 22, 1921 in Helena, Arkansas. He attended college and seminary at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in History in 1943 and a Master of Divinity in 1945. He was ordained to the diaconate in 1944 and to the priesthood in 1945.

Allin began his career at St. Peter’s Episcopal Mission in Conway, Arkansas, eventually moving to Louisiana where he spent 8 years serving in various pastoral roles, beginning with a curacy at St. Andrew’s Church in New Orleans. In 1952, he was called to serve as rector of Grace Episcopal Church in Monroe, Louisiana and then, in 1958, agreed to serve as president and headmaster of All Saints College in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

In 1961, Allin was elected as Bishop Coadjutor of the Diocese of Mississippi, which began his progression within the leadership of The Episcopal Church. On the retirement of Bishop Duncan Gray in 1966, he became the Sixth Bishop of the Diocese of Mississippi, a position in which he served until 1974. During this time he helped found the Committee of Concern, an ecumenical and civic alliance organized to raise funds for the rebuilding of over 100 African American churches that had been burned by white racist groups.

In 1973, at the 64th General Convention in Louisville, Kentucky, the House of Bishops elected Allin the 23rd Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church. He was installed on June 11, 1974. Allin’s tenure commenced at a time of considerable turbulence and change in The Episcopal Church, which he approached with a talent for compromise and a resolve to promote reconciliation. During this time, the Church approved the ordination of women (1976), an issue to which Allin was firmly opposed; began the Venture in Mission (VIM) campaign, a major fundraising effort for special mission and ministry (1976); adopted a new Book of Common Prayer (1979); and established the Office of Black Ministries.

Allin retired as Presiding Bishop in 1985, but remained active in the Church until his death in Jackson, Mississippi on March 6, 1998.

John Torok, born in Hungary in 1890 to a Jewish father and a Christian mother, arrived in the United States in 1920 and received into the Episcopal priesthood by Diocese of Maryland Bishop Murray on June 9, 1921.

In 1923, a group of Uniate churches in Pittsburgh elected Torok as their bishop, with the idea that he would lead them out of the Roman Catholic communion and into The Episcopal Church. Torok was consecrated on October 19, 1924 at the Serbian Legation Chapel in Vienna by Bishop Gorazd and Bishop Dositej, both Orthodox bishops. Upon Torok’s return, he found that due to other plans regarding intercommunion being carried out at the same time, any exercise of his episcopal privilege would likely result in a split in the Church.

To mitigate potential discord, Torok retired to secular life. However, several years later a renewal of interest in intercommunion brought him back to Church life. After much canvassing on his behalf by Bishop Frank Wilson of Eau Claire, Torok was elected Suffragan Bishop of that diocese in May of 1934. His primary focus was foreign language work among the Uniate peoples in Pennsylvania, New York and Maryland, but Bishop Wilson could get neither firm approval nor firm disapproval for this work from the rest of the Church. Furthermore, General Convention declined to confirm Torok’s consecration.

Torok returned to secular employment until 1946, when he took up parish work, first in Mexico and later in Puerto Rico. From 1947 to 1950 he served Grace Church in Brooklyn.

John Torok died in 1955.

Born on May 21, 1885, in Kittaning, Pennsylvania, Frank Wilson graduated from Hobart College in 1907. He graduated with a Bachelor of Divinity from General Theological Seminary in New York in 1910 and was ordained a priest later that year. After serving in various churches and as an Army chaplain during World War I, he became rector of Christ Church Cathedral in Eau Claire, Wisconsin in 1919. In 1928, Wilson was elected as the first Bishop of the new Diocese of Eau Claire and was consecrated in 1929.

Frank Elmer Wilson died in office on February 16, 1944.

William White, the first Bishop of Pennsylvania (1787-1836), was born into a wealthy and prominent family in Philadelphia in 1748. He was educated at the College of Philadelphia, where he eventually received his Doctor of Divinity degree. Ordained deacon in 1770 and priest in 1772, White became first assistant minister and then rector of Christ Church and St. Peter’s in Philadelphia, a position in which he served for the remainder of his life. He also served as chaplain of the Continental Congress during the Revolutionary War, president of the first and fourth General Conventions, and Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in America from 1795 until his death in 1836. Additionally, White played a leading role in many civic organizations and educational institutions such as the Philadelphia Bible Society, the American Philosophical Society, and the General Theological Seminary.

Bishop White was a critical figure in the formation of the Protestant Episcopal Church, contributing not only as a talented organizer and a pragmatic reconciler between differing opinions, but also as a proponent of constitutional law and republican forms of government. His accepted recommendations for the Church constitution that included the establishment of The Episcopal Church as a self-governing and independent ecclesiastical body, the inclusion of laity with equal representation as clergy in governing bodies, and the right of dioceses to elect their own bishops. In addition, he proposed a new Prayer Book and planned for obtaining the episcopate from the English bishops that would extend the line of apostolic succession to America without requiring bishops to swear allegiance to the King of England.

Maurice Votaw began his service as a missionary in 1922 after applying for a post at St. John’s University in Shanghai, China. After helping to found the School of Journalism there, he taught journalistic writing, history, principles of journalism and advertising, and copy editing for seventeen years.

In 1939, during the tumultuous years of the Sino-Japanese War, Votaw was asked to become an advisor to the Chinese Ministry of Information in Chungking. A leave of absence from St. John's lengthened into a stay of nine years, as returning to Shanghai was deemed unsafe. After his return in 1948, he was elected Dean of the College of the Arts at St. John's. This appointment lasted only a year, however, as the Communist forces drew nearer to the city, and in 1949, Votaw returned to the United States on what he later recalled as “the last regularly scheduled ship.”

From 1950 until his retirement in 1970, Votaw taught journalism at the University of Missouri. He is remembered as a pioneering figure at the School of Journalism, a graduate who helped to carry “the Missouri Method” to China, and returned to give what he learned in China back to the students of Missouri.

Maurice Votaw died in 1981.

Helen Brogden Turnbull was born in Baltimore, Maryland on June 23, 1907. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Goucher College in Towson, Maryland in 1929 and completed her graduate studies at Teachers College of Columbia University, Union Theological Seminary, and Windham House.

After earning her master’s degree in Religious Education, she accepted a position as the Executive Secretary of College Work for the Episcopal Church in the Province of New England. In 1944, she became the director of Windham House, the national graduate training center for women of The Episcopal Church. During this time she was also a part-time lecturer in religious education at both Union Theological Seminary and General Theological Seminary.

After ten years at Windham House, Turnbull was appointed to the staff of the World Council of Churches in Geneva, Switzerland, serving as associate secretary in the Department on Cooperation of Men and Women in Church and Society. Organizational changes in her department led to her resignation, after which she began working for United Church Women of the National Council of Churches as Director of Leadership and Field Outreach.

A 1966 reorganization led to the separation of United Church Women from the National Council of Churches. Turnbull was named Director of Ecumenical Relations of the renamed body known as Church Women United.

Upon leaving Church Women United in 1969, she worked as the director of the Hannah Harrison School (in association with the YWCA in Washington, D.C.) for three years before retiring in 1973.

Helen Brogden Turnbull died on July 23, 2001 in Towson, Maryland.

The Rt. Rev. Andrew Y.Y. Tsu was Bishop of the Missionary District of Yung-Kwei in Southwest China and General Executive Secretary of the Holy Catholic Church in China from 1940 to 1950. He presided over the Church in China during tumultuous times, including the Sino-Japanese War and the Communist Revolution, which ultimately forced him out of office. He retired to the United States and the Diocese of Delaware in 1950.

Andrew Y. Y. Tsu died in 1986 at the age of 100.

The Rt. Rev. Joseph Cruikshank Talbot was born in Alexandria, Virginia on September 5, 1816. In 1841 he began his course of preparation for Holy Orders and was ordained to the diaconate on September 5, 1846 and to the priesthood on September 6, 1848.

He moved to Indiana in 1853 and became rector of Christ Church, Indianapolis, where he served for seven years. In 1859, he was elected by General Convention to serve as Missionary Bishop of the North West and was consecrated the following year. The Missionary District of the North West covered nearly nine hundred thousand square miles and included Nebraska, the Dakotas, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Montana, and Idaho.

In 1865, Talbot was elected Bishop Coadjutor of the Diocese of Indiana, serving for five years before becoming diocesan bishop in 1872 after the death of Bishop George Uphold.

Bishop Talbot died in Indianapolis on January 15, 1883.

Henri Alexandre Stines was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on October 29, 1923. He completed his theological training at Seminaire Theologique, the Episcopal seminary in Port-au-Prince, and was ordained in Haiti as a deacon in 1945 and a priest in 1947. The following year, Stines received his Master of Divinity from General Theological Seminary.

After immigrating to the United States in 1950, Stines first served as vicar at St. James Episcopal Church in Charleston, West Virginia. In 1953 Stines began a long career of revitalizing struggling churches when he assumed leadership of Grace Episcopal Church, Detroit, Michigan. Under eleven years of his stewardship, Grace Church grew from fewer than 100 members to over 1200, making it one of the most active multiracial Episcopal churches in Detroit.

After a stint as Director of Southern Field Service for the Episcopal Society for Cultural and Race Unity (1964-1966), during which time he led protests against segregation and coordinated Southern congregations involved in justice ministry, Stines returned to direct ministry by accepting a position at the Church of the Atonement in Washington, D.C. In 1969, he moved to All Souls Episcopal Church in Berkeley, California, broadening its membership to the entire Bay area and offering educational programs attuned to social concerns of the community. Stines returned to Chicago in 1972, this time to Trinity Episcopal Church, growing it from fewer than 25 members in 1972 to more than 225 members by 1984 with a committed vestry, innovative liturgies in French and Spanish, and special ministries to the elderly and homebound. Stines retired from parish ministry in 1986, although he continued to serve as an interim priest in Chicago and New Jersey until 1990.

Henri Alexandre Stines died on March 8, 1995.

John Shelby Spong was born June 16, 1931 in Charlotte, North Carolina. After receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1952 from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill he earned a Master of Divinity degree from Virginia Theological Seminary in 1955. He was ordained a deacon and a priest that year.

For two years, Spong served as rector at St. Joseph’s Church in Durham, North Carolina, before assuming the rectorship of Cavalry Church in Tarboro, North Carolina, in 1957. In a city that resisted integration, Spong ministered to the Black congregation at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church alongside the white congregation at Cavalry. He continued service as a rector at St. John’s Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, (1965) and St. Paul’s Church in Richmond, Virginia (1969) before being consecrated Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark in 1976. As bishop he continued to work tirelessly on behalf of those marginalized in the Church, ordaining a non-celibate gay deacon to the priesthood in 1989 and advocating for women clergy. Spong gained recognition among lay audiences for his many books on theology, which often challenged conventional doctrine. After retiring as bishop in 2000, he continued to speak on faith, modernity, and social justice.

John Shelby Spong died on September 12, 2021.

Samuel Moor Shoemaker was born on December 27, 1893, to a wealthy Episcopalian family with deep roots in Maryland high society. He attended Princeton University where he was involved with the Philadelphian Society that shaped much of his early ministry. After graduation, he moved to Beijing to teach and do missionary work. While there Shoemaker met Frank N. D. Buchman, a Pietist Lutheran preacher and activist who would go on to found the Oxford Group that evolved into the Moral Re-Armament (MRA) movement.

Shoemaker was ordained to the diaconate in 1920 and to the priesthood in 1921. In 1925 he accepted a call to serve as rector of Calvary Church, New York City.

In 1926, Shoemaker began hosting weekly evening meetings geared toward training working people to witness their faith and convert others in their workplaces. He traveled the country in 1932, sermonizing to combat what he saw as the spiritual decay brought on by the Great Depression. His establishment of a rescue mission on New York City’s Lower East Side led him to minister to men struggling with addiction, including William Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Shoemaker continued to pursue those ministries at Calvary Church in Pittsburgh, where he became rector in 1952. He also sought to win converts through his writing. He published frequently in the parish newsletter The Calvary Evangel and later independently as the renamed magazine Faith at Work. Failing health forced Shoemaker to resign from active ministry in 1962.

Samuel Moor Shoemaker died in Baltimore on October 30, 1963.

Peter Gray Sears was born in 1866 in Oxford, Mississippi. After receiving his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Mississippi in 1885, he attended General Theological Seminary and was ordained a deacon in 1887 and a priest in 1890.

In 1889, Sears began serving as the rector of Christ Church in Holly Springs, Mississippi, a position he held for ten years. While there, he reorganized St. Thomas Hall, a military boarding school for boys. He served in different missions in Mississippi until 1905, when he became the rector of Christ Episcopal Church in Houston, Texas. He held the Christ Church rectorship until his resignation in 1926, after which he accepted an appointment as rector emeritus. He then became the first rector of Palmer Memorial Chapel in 1929, remaining there until his retirement in 1936.

Peter Gray Sears died on January 26, 1942.

William Scarlett was born in Columbus, Ohio in 1883. He began his career in 1911 as dean of Trinity Cathedral in Phoenix, Arizona, a position he held for eleven years. From 1922 until his election as bishop coadjutor in 1930, he
served as dean of Christ Cathedral in St. Louis. In 1933 he was appointed Bishop of Missouri and became a tireless crusader for social reform, committing the resources of the diocese to helping those left jobless and homeless by the Great Depression. In 1935 the Episcopal City Mission was created to minister to those in the city’s jails. He also revitalized Christian education in the congregations, recognizing that the future of the Church was at stake.

Known as a liberal clergyman, Scarlett championed the idea of church unity and wanted cooperation among all denominations. He was one of the founders of the St. Louis Chapter of the Conference of Christians and Jews and was invited to share ownership of St. Luke’s Hospital with the Presbyterians. As president of the Urban League of St. Louis, he sought to make his community aware of problems in race relations. While on the national board of the Urban League and American Civil Liberties Union, Scarlett advocated for the equal rights of blacks long before the issue was addressed by the institutional church. He retired in 1952 and was succeeded by Bishop Lichtenberger.

William Scarlett died in Castine, Maine on March 28, 1973.