Episcopal Press and News

Samuel Wylie Elected General Seminary Dean

Diocesan Press Service. June 6, 1966 [44-5]

The Rev. Samuel J. Wylie, rector of the Church of the Advent, Boston, was unanimously elected Dean of General Theological Seminary, New York, it was announced May 31.

He will leave his Boston pulpit in September and expects to take up his seminary position in December, succeeding the Very Rev. Lawrence Rose. Father Wylie's arrival will almost coincide with the beginnings of the celebration of the seminary's sesquicentennial year. General Seminary is the official seminary of the Episcopal Church and also the oldest. It is located in New York's Chelsea section on land deeded by Clement Clarke Moore, a Hebrew scholar and author of "A Visit from St. Nicholas" (Twas the Night Before Christmas).

Father Wylie received his theological education at Biblical Seminary in New York where he met his wife, the former Beatrice Browne. After his graduation, he became a Presbyterian minister. He later studied at Union Theological Seminary in New York, receiving a master's degree in Sacred Theology. In 1951 he became a deacon in the Episcopal Church and was ordained to the priesthood the following year.

He was Episcopal chaplain at the University of Virginia and at Brown University and then an associate secretary in the Executive Council's Division of College Work (now College and University Division) before taking his present parish six years ago.

He and his wife have four children.