Retired Bishop of Pittsburgh Dies

Episcopal News Service. May 7, 1981 [81143]

Pittsburgh -- The Rt. Rev. Austin Pardue, D. D., retired Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, died here April 28. He was 81.

Throughout his life, Bishop Pardue was well-known as a public speaker. From 1941 to 1945 he conducted a regular radio program, "Our Morale," which was broadcast coast to coast in the United States, and he spoke on the Episcopal Radio Hour in 1956. While he was Bishop of Pittsburgh, he also went on preaching tours for the U. S. Air Force in Greenland, Europe, the Far East, Africa and Canada. At the invitation of the Archbishop of Capetown, Bishop Pardue conducted preaching missions in South Africa. He was invited to preach at St. Paul's, London, and at Westminister Abbey for the Royal Family.

Bishop Pardue was born in Chicago on August 9, 1899. He did his undergraduate work at Hobart College, Geneva, N. Y., and seminary work at Nashotah House, Wis., and the General Theological Seminary, New York City, where he received a bachelor of divinity in 1925. He earned a doctorate of Sacred Theology from Seabury-Western Theological Seminary in 1941, and received the honorary degrees of Doctor of Divinity from Hobart College and Doctor of Laws from the University of Pittsburgh.

In 1922 Bishop Pardue was secretary of the national Episcopal Young People's Movement. He was ordained priest in 1925, and served in Chicago, Minnesota and Iowa from 1925-1938. In 1938 he became dean of St. Paul's Cathedral, Buffalo, where he stayed until his election to the episcopate in 1944. From 1944 until his retirement in 1968, he was bishop of the Diocese of Pittsburgh.

Bishop Pardue wrote several books, including Bold to Say, Life Out There, Create and Make New, Korean Adventure and The Eucharist and You.

He is survived by his wife, Dorothy Klotz Pardue, their two children, Peter Austin and Nancy P. Sheerer, and four grandchildren. The funeral was held April 30 in Trinity Cathedral, Pittsburgh.