Episcopal Press and News
News Brief
Episcopal News Service. January 31, 1980 [80033]
The Rt. Rev. John B. Coburn, Episcopal Bishop of Massachusetts, has been elected Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral here. The intention of the election of the bishop as cathedral dean is that the cathedral "serve as the focus and symbol of the commitment of the diocese to a mission and ministry to the cities," according to Bishop Coburn. Plans for St. Paul's Cathedral, which has been without a dean and in a period of evaluation and transition for over a year since the retirement of the former dean, the Very Rev. Charles H. Buck, Jr., call for a step-by-step expansion of its role in the life of the diocese and the city.
The Rev. Dr. Robert M. Cooper of Nashotah, Wisc., and the Very Rev. Robert B. Hibbs of Quezon City, The Philippines, will join the faculty of the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest here on July 1, according to the Very Rev. Gordon T. Charleton, Jr., ETS-SW Dean. Dr. Cooper currently is Professor of Ethics and Moral Theology at Nashotah House. He was appointed to the same position here. Having served as Dean of St. Andrew's Theological Seminary in Quezon City, The Philippines, since 1976, Hibbs was appointed Professor of Pastoral Theology here. The Rev. Dr. Frank S. Doremus, a member of the faculty here since 1957, has been appointed Sub-Dean of the Seminary. The appointments were made last December by the Seminary's Board of Trustees.
The Community of Saint Mary, a religious order for women of the Episcopal Church, is offering an opportunity for young women to test a possible vocation through a summer community live-in program in which guests share the daily life of the convent. Inquiries should be directed to the Community of Saint Mary, John Street, Peekskill, N.Y. 10566.
The present status of ecumenical relations was the topic of a St. Stephen's Conversation held Jan. 17-18, at St. Stephen's House here, and attended by over sixty participants of the Eastern Orthodox, Episcopal, Lutheran and Roman Catholic Churches. The principal speaker was the Very Rev. P. W. Schneirla of the Antiochene (Syrian Orthodox) Archdiocese, who is a professor at St. Vladimir's Seminary in Crestwood, N. Y., secretary of the Standing Conference of Orthodox Bishops in the U. S., and a member of the Orthodox dialogues with the other churches. Schneirla mainly addressed himself to the problem which the claims of the Roman papacy pose for the Orthodox. He described the papacy as acceptable in terms of a primacy among bishops, but not at all acceptable to Orthodoxy in embodying an allegedly unique succession from St. Peter, or as an infallible agency. He also stressed the importance of continuing Orthodox-Anglican discussions in spite of the great barrier which the ordination of women has allegedly created.
Word was received here that the All Africa Council of Churches has declared the post of general secretary to be vacant; a step which appears to end a long-running controversy with the Rev. Canon Burgess Carr who had held the post. Canon Carr, an Episcopal priest who is now studying and teaching in Cambridge, Mass., had taken an extended leave from the African Council over policy disputes. The Council announcement indicated that it will be some months before the post is again filled.
The Rt. Rev. Michael Marshall, suffragan bishop of Southwark, Church of England, will be the keynote speaker at a major national conference on Episcopal evangelism and shared ministry. The Sept. 18-21 conference will take place in St. Louis and bring together parish and diocesan teams to develop plans of shared ministry and increased evangelism drawing, according to the conference organizers, "on the historic evangelical and catholic traditions of the Episcopal Church." The opening eucharist for the conference will be celebrated by Presiding Bishop John M. Allin, who will also speak to the Conference.