Herbert A. Donovan Jr.

Last updated
The Right Reverend

Herbert A. Donovan Jr.
Bishop of Arkansas
Church Episcopal Church
Diocese Arkansas
ElectedMay 10, 1980
In office1981–1993
Predecessor Christoph Keller Jr.
Successor Larry Maze
Orders
Ordination1957
by  James Wilson Hunter
ConsecrationSeptember 22, 1980
by  John Allin
Personal details
Born (1931-07-14) July 14, 1931 (age 92)
Denomination Anglican
ParentsHerbert Alcorn Donovan, Marion Mitchell Kirk
Spouse
Mary Gertrude Sudman
(m. 1959)
Children3
Previous post(s)Coadjutor Bishop of Arkansas (1980-1981)
Alma mater University of Virginia

Herbert Alcorn Donovan Jr. (born July 14, 1931) is an American Episcopal cleric and administrator who served as the bishop of Arkansas.

Contents

Donovan served in many high level posts in the American Episcopal Church, advocated for women and LGBTQ people and administered several Episcopal charities working in Africa, the Middle East, Europe and Cuba.

Background

Donovan was born in Washington, D.C., on July 14, 1931. His parents were the Rev. Herbert A. Donovan and Marion Kirk Donovan who had been missionaries to Liberia but his father was then rector of Truro Church, in Fairfax, Virginia.

Donovan attended Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Virginia, and the University of Virginia. While at the university he served as president of the U.S. Student Christian Movement. In 1953, Donovan attended the third World Conference of Christian Youth in Kerala State in , India. [1] In 1955, he joined the U.S. Navy as a chaplain in 1955, serving later as a reserve chaplain until the 1970s. As a captain, he commanded a chaplains unit that ministered to the US fleet of nuclear submarines.

In 1957, Donovan graduated from Virginia Theological Seminary and was ordained deacon by Bishop Frederick D. Goodwin of Virginia. Donovan then moved to Green River, Wyoming, was ordained priest by Bishop J. Wilson Hunter of Wyoming and served as rector of St. John's Episcopal Church.

In 1959, Donovan married Mary Sudman; the couple had three children, all born in Basin, Wyoming, while he served at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church.

Later career

In 1964, Donovan became executive officer to Bishop C. Gresham Marmion of the Diocese of Kentucky. In 1970, Donovan moved to Montclair, New Jersey, where he became rector of St. Luke's Episcopal Church.

In 1980, Donovan was elected Bishop of Arkansas, [2] moving to Little Rock. In 1981, Donovan joined other religious leaders as plaintiffs in McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education, a successful suit that challenged the regulation that required Arkansas public schools to teach “creation science”. [3] Donovan retired as Bishop on September 1, 1993.

Donovan then became vicar of Trinity Church, Wall Street and Assisting Bishop of New York. [4] After his retirement from that position in 1998, he served in several interim positions: Provisional Bishop of Chicago 1998–99 (January 1998 until March 1999), [5] Assisting Bishop of New Jersey 1999–2000 (May 26, 1999 – February 1, 2000), [6] Anglican Observer at the United Nations, 2000–2001, [7] Rector of Trinity Church, Boston March, 2005- May 2006. [8]

Career focus

Active in church governance, Donovan attended every General Convention from 1967 until 2012, either as a clerical deputy or later as a member of the House of Bishops (where he served as Secretary from 1986 to 1998). [9] His career spanned a turbulent period as the Episcopal Church dealt with the struggles to admit women and later gay and lesbian candidates to Holy Orders.

Donovan's impulse was to work through existing political orders to effect change. He and Byron Rushing of Massachusetts chaired Coalition E for the General Convention of 1976 and 1979—a political action group that worked to eliminate gender, racial and ethnic barriers to the ordination and church deployment processes. He also chaired the National Council's Committee on the Employment/Deployment of Women Priests for the Episcopal Church. [10]

International concerns

Donovan represented the Episcopal Church in delegations to Latin America and several provinces in Africa. In 1999, he became Coordinator of the College of Bishops at General Theological Seminary. He served as Interim Anglican Observer to the United Nations from December 7, 1999, until July 1, 2001. [11]

In October 2001, Donovan was appointed Executive Director of the Compass Rose Society, an international group dedicated to raising funds for Anglican mission initiative. These included an Anglican hospital in the Gaza Strip, health clinics in Nigeria, rebuilding church offices in Cuba and completing the construction of an Anglican Centre in Spain. [12] As President of the American Friends of Cuttington University in Liberia, Donovan was active in raising support for that University's campaign to combat the ebola crisis in 2004. [13]

Donovan also served as Deputy to the Presiding Bishop for Anglican Communion Relations from 2008 to 2010. [14] He was a member of the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church from 1979 to 1980, and 1985–1991. [15] He also served on the Pastoral Care Team of the House of Bishops to minister to chaplains serving in the U.S. armed forces in Operation Desert Storm. [16]

Related Research Articles

John Gerald Barton Andrew, OBE was a British Anglican priest. From 1972 to 1996, he was the Rector of St. Thomas' Church on New York's Fifth Avenue.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Truro Anglican Church (Fairfax, Virginia)</span> Church in Virginia USA, United States

Truro Anglican Church is an Anglican church in Fairfax, Virginia, USA.

Andrew Bruce Cameron is a Scottish Anglican bishop who served as the Bishop of Aberdeen and Orkney and the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virginia Theological Seminary</span> Episcopal seminary in Alexandria, Virginia, United States

Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS), formally called the Protestant Episcopal Theological Seminary in Virginia, located at 3737 Seminary Road in Alexandria, Virginia is the largest and second oldest accredited Episcopal seminary in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbara Harris (bishop)</span> American bishop (1930–2020)

Barbara Clementine Harris was an American bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States. She was the first woman consecrated a bishop in the Anglican Communion. She was elected suffragan bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, on September 24, 1988, and was consecrated on February 11, 1989. Eight thousand people attended the service, which was held at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, Massachusetts. She served in the role of suffragan bishop for 13 years, retiring in 2003.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William White (bishop of Pennsylvania)</span> American Episcopal bishop, 1748–1836

William White was the first and fourth Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the United States, the first bishop of the Diocese of Pennsylvania (1787–1836), and the second United States Senate Chaplain. He also served as the first and fourth President of the House of Deputies for the General Convention of the Episcopal Church.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katharine Jefferts Schori</span> Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America

Katharine Jefferts Schori is the former Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church of the United States. Previously elected as the 9th Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Nevada, she was the first woman elected as a primate in the Anglican Communion. Jefferts Schori was elected at the 75th General Convention on June 18, 2006, and invested at Washington National Cathedral on November 4, 2006, and continued until November 1, 2015, when Michael Bruce Curry was invested in the position. She took part in her first General Convention of the Episcopal Church as Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church in July 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Episcopal Church in the Philippines</span> Ecclesiastical province of the Anglican Communion

The Episcopal Church in the Philippines is a province of the Anglican Communion comprising the country of the Philippines. It was established by the Episcopal Church of the United States in 1901 by American missionaries led by Charles Henry Brent, who served as the first resident bishop, when the Philippines was opened to Protestant American missionaries. It became an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion on May 1, 1990.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul G. Chandler (author)</span> American author

Paul Gordon Chandler is an author, art curator, interfaith peacemaker, social entrepreneur and former Episcopal clergyperson. He grew up in West Africa (Senegal) and has lived and worked in leadership roles throughout the world, with an emphasis on the Middle East and Africa, with ecumenical publishing, relief and development agencies, the arts and Anglican Communion. His book on Kahlil Gibran, the best-selling Lebanese born poet-artist and author of The Prophet, is In Search of a Prophet: A Spiritual Journey with Kahlil Gibran.

William Wesley Millsaps is a Continuing Anglican bishop. He is bishop of the Episcopal Missionary Church. He is the rector of Christ Church in Monteagle, Tennessee, and Presiding bishop of the Episcopal Missionary Church. He had served previously from 2001-2010. He was elected again in December 2014 at a Synod held at Christ Church, Warrenton, Virginia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Episcopal Diocese of Taiwan</span> Diocese of the Episcopal Church of the United States

The Episcopal Diocese of Taiwan is the Anglican diocese in Taiwan and a member diocese of the Episcopal Church of the United States. It was established in 1954, five years after Chinese Episcopalians fled from mainland China to Taiwan following the Chinese Communist Revolution in 1949.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Episcopal Church (United States)</span> Anglican denomination in the United States

The Episcopal Church (TEC), based in the United States with additional dioceses elsewhere, is a member church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. It is a mainline Protestant denomination and is divided into nine provinces. The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church is Michael Bruce Curry, the first African American bishop to serve in that position.

Stephen Hays Jecko was the seventh bishop of the Diocese of Florida and the 892nd bishop in the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, a province of the Anglican Communion.

Robert Arthur "Bob" Gillies is a retired British Anglican bishop. From 2006 to 2016, he served as the Bishop of Aberdeen and Orkney in the Scottish Episcopal Church. He is also a published author.

The Philadelphia Eleven are eleven women who were the first women ordained as priests in the Episcopal Church on July 29, 1974, two years before General Convention affirmed and explicitly authorized the ordination of women to the priesthood.

John James Gravatt Jr was the second Bishop of Upper South Carolina in The Episcopal Church.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jo Bailey Wells</span> Bishop, priest and academic

Joanne Caladine Bailey Wells is a British Anglican bishop, theologian, and academic. Since January 2023, she has served at the Anglican Communion Office in London as "Bishop for Episcopal Ministry". Previously, she was a lecturer in the Old Testament and biblical theology at Ridley Hall, Cambridge, and then associate professor of Bible and Ministry at Duke Divinity School, Duke University, North Carolina; From 2013 until 2016, she had served as Chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury; she was then Bishop of Dorking, a suffragan bishop in the Diocese of Guildford, 2016–2023.

Jennifer Lynn Baskerville-Burrows is the bishop of the Diocese of Indianapolis in the Episcopal Church, elected in October 2016s consecrated on April 29, 2017. She is the first African-American woman to be elected a diocesan bishop. Prior to her consecration, she served as Director of Networking in the Diocese of Chicago. Previously, she was a priest in the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York, the Episcopal Diocese of Newark, and the Episcopal Diocese of California. In addition to her parish ministry, she has been Director of Alumni and Church Relations at Church Divinity School of the Pacific and a chaplain to Syracuse University.

Thomas William "T. J." Johnston Jr. is an American lawyer and bishop of the Anglican Church in North America. As the first Episcopal priest whose orders were transferred to the Anglican Church of Rwanda in the 1990s, Johnston was a key figure in the Anglican realignment in the United States. Consecrated as a bishop in 2001 to serve in the Anglican Mission in the Americas, Johnston later became a church planter in South Carolina.

John Hewitt Rodgers Jr. (1930–2022) was an American Anglican theologian and bishop. The author of multiple commentaries on the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, he was a founding faculty member at Trinity School for Ministry and served as its dean and president from 1978 to 1990. In 2000, he played a role in the global Anglican realignment when he was consecrated as a bishop of the Anglican Church of Rwanda to oversee congregations in North America through the Anglican Mission in America.

References

  1. World's Student Christian Federation,World Conference of Christian Youth Conference, Travancore, India, Study Book, December, 1952
  2. “Episcopalians Elect Coadjutor,” Arkansas Gazette, 11 May 1980; Episcopal News Service, 22 May 1980; “High Profile,” Arkansas Gazette, 22 December 1991
  3. Complaint, 27 May 1981, McClean v. Arkansas Documentation Project. http://www.antievolution.org/projects/mclean/new_site/index.htm.
  4. Episcopal News Service 17 March 1993
  5. Episcopal News Service, 13 Nov. 1997
  6. Episcopal News Service, 30 June 1999
  7. Episcopal News Service 15 December 1999
  8. Episcopal News Service 30 March 2005
  9. Episcopal Clerical Directory, 2017
  10. Report of the Council of the Development of Ministry to 1979 General Convention
  11. Episcopal News Service, 15 December 1999
  12. Episcopal News Service 3 April 2001
  13. Mary Frances Schjonberg, “Liberia’s Cuttington University needs help to reopen,” Episcopal News Service 28 January 2015
  14. Episcopal News Service 20 October 2008
  15. Episcopal Church Annual, 1990, p. 27
  16. Episcopal News Service, 25 January 1991