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McDonald Named Director of Trinity Institute

Episcopal News Service. January 6, 1977 [77006]

NEW YORK, N.Y. -- The Rev. Dr. Durstan R. McDonald, 39, chaplain and assistant professor of philosophy at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, N.Y., has been appointed director of the Trinity Institute of the Parish of Trinity Church in New York effective July 1.

The announcement was made by the Rev. Dr. Robert Ray Parks, rector, who said that Dr. McDonald's acceptance has ended a year's search for someone to succeed the Rt. Rev. Robert E. Terwilliger who became Suffragan Bishop of Dallas in January.

The Trinity Institute was founded in 1967 by Trinity Parish to provide continuing theological education for Episcopal clergy. Its eighth annual national conference, open to all Episcopal clergy in the United States and Anglican clergy in Canada, begins Jan. 18 at Riverside Church under the direction of the Most Rev. Edward W. Scott, Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada.

National conferences of the Institute have drawn more than 2,000 Episcopal clergy to New York, representing about 10 percent of the total number of priests actively working in the church. The current Archbishop of Canterbury, Donald Coggan, has praised the Institute for its contribution to the theological life of the Anglican Communion.

Dr. McDonald brings to the directorship a vocation to education and priesthood that began to be nurtured when he was a student at Brooklyn Preparatory School, 1950-1954.

Under the tutelage of Jesuit scholars there, Dr. McDonald began to explore the depths of the Christian religion. He became interested in the Episcopal Church and was baptized and confirmed at St. Thomas', Fifth Avenue, because he used to drop in there on his way home from the N.Y. Athletic Club where he was a member of the swimming team.

His major interest in theology is in its application to life with a strong emphasis on ethics. His latest involvement at Hobart has been in the field of medical ethics.

He went to the Geneva based colleges in 1967 after earning his Ph.D. in religion from the University of Pennsylvania. He was almost immediately swallowed up in the campus reaction to the Vietnam war and he organized a draft counseling center and founded the Hobart Legal Defense Fund.

The McDonalds have been very much involved in the life of the city of Geneva. Mrs. McDonald is a teacher in the public school.

Dr. McDonald graduated from Trinity College in 1958 with honors in classics and philosophy. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He received the Bachelor in Sacred Theology degree from Philadelphia Divinity School in 1963 with honors in Patristics.

He married Ruth Jones of Philadelphia in June, 1958. They have four daughters.