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Bishop John Walker of Washington Dead at 64

Episcopal News Service. October 4, 1989 [89177]

John Thomas Walker, sixth bishop of Washington, dean of Washington National Cathedral, and vice-president of the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church, died Saturday, September 30, of heart failure after triple bypass surgery. Funeral services are scheduled for October 5 at the cathedral with Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning officiating.

In paying tribute to Bishop Walker, Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning said. "John Walker has always been one of God's most faithful servants. A person of compelling faith, he stood by what he believed and by those he believed in. In a manner that was gentle and often touched with humor, he was a strong advocate for peace and justice in a world that hungers for both. The church has been blessed in his ministry among the whole people of God. I have been privileged to have him as a friend over these last two decades, and I will miss him terribly."

"It is a painful irony that we had begun to miss him before he actually left our company. He had just been reelected to serve as vice-president of the House of Bishops at our meeting in Philadelphia last week. His surgery prevented him from coming, and we kept him in our prayers. We will continue to pray for him and also for Maria and their children," the Presiding Bishop said in a statement issued October 3.

Bishop Walker was born in Barnesville, Georgia, but the family moved to Chicago and then to Detroit, where he spent his youth. He was graduated in 1951 from Wayne State University in Detroit and that fall became the first black student at Virginia Theological Seminary.

After graduation from seminary, Walker returned to Detroit and was ordained a deacon in 1954 and a priest a year later. After serving as rector of St. Mary's Church in Detroit, Walker was called in 1957to St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, where he taught American and modern European history and the history of philosophy. In 1966 Walker came to Washington, D.C., as canon of the cathedral with responsibility for ministry to the city. As a part of that ministry, he hosted a weekly television program focusing on urban, ethnic, and ecumenical concerns. He was consecrated suffragan bishop in 1971 and in 1976 was elected bishop coadjutor. Upon the retirement of Bishop William Creighton in 1977, Walker became the bishop of Washington. When the Very Rev. Francis B. Sayre, Jr. retired as dean of the cathedral, Walker also assumed that post, linking the diocese and cathedral more closely in ministry to the city. Walker's continuing concern for problems of urban America led him to join in 1976 with other bishops to form the Urban Bishops Coalition and serve as its first chairman.

Walker was also active in ecumenical affairs, helping to form in 1978 the Interfaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington whose membership includes Christians, Jews, and Muslims. He served as first president. He also served on the Episcopal Church's Joint Commission on Ecumenical Relations, the Consultation on Church Union, and as a delegate to the World Council of Churches Fifth Assembly in Nairobi. Until his death he served as president of the Council of Churches of Greater Washington.

Walker's civic activities also demonstrated his deep concerns for the future of the city. He headed the panel, for example, that chose a new chief of police for the District of Columbia in 1974. He had long been a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Urban League, the national advisory council of the Americans for Civil Liberties Union, the Union of Black Episcopalians, and the Absalom Jones Theological Institute. He was also a member of the special commission appointed to examine the scholastic honor system at the United States Military Academy at West Point. He had served on the boards of St. Paul's School, VirginiaTheological Seminary, and the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley.

Walker's long involvement with the church overseas began in 1961 when he directed a summer training program for the Episcopal Church's Executive Council in Nicaragua, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, and Mexico. He had also traveled extensively in Africa and taught for a year at the Bishop Tucker Theological College in Uganda. As chairman of Africare, a relief organization for self-help development projects, Walker observed, firsthand, projects in Zambia and Zimbabwe.

As a black priest in a church that has often been identified with the white, upper middle class, Walker dealt with racism all his life. As a tribute in the Washington Post said, "Not only did he prevail in those situations, he was able to use the traditions and mechanisms of the Episcopal Church to his advantage. In this way he was credited with transforming the church itself." He was "both a symbol and the driving force of racial reconciliation within his church," the Post continued.

"He is one of the greatest bishops in the history of the church," said the Rt. Rev. Richard Emrich, retired bishop of Michigan, who persuaded Walker to attend seminary. "He has changed the Episcopal Church in Washington, but also he has changed the church nationally. It's hard to remember the Episcopal Church John Walker came into in 1947 because he has remade it so completely, yet so gracefully," Emrich said in an interview.

When Walker came to Washington in 1966 to work in a program in the city's poorest neighborhoods, there was only one integrated Episcopal Church in the city and very few black priests. Today, there are a dozen integrated parishes, a score of black priests -- and 25 women priests. Walker is credited with making those changes without some of the controversy experienced in other quarters of the church because of his quiet but persistent style of leadership. He said in a Washington Post interview that it was not his style "to throw my weight around and beat people up or try to force them out of their jobs or try to control parishes."

Walker described himself as a "quintessential Anglican, and I say that with some pride because Anglicanism has always been the church in the middle, the church that wants to reach out to both sides and say you can find a home here."

While he had a very clear and realistic perception of urban problems, he was a man of hope. "I know some people want to throw in the sponge and give up, but I can't do that. My feeling is too strong that it is God's will that we grow beyond our racial animosities and that we must commit ourselves to continue that work. That's why I am here."

An editorial in the Washington Post after his death said: "Washington Cathedral is the great symbol of the Episcopal Church's presence here, but the nature of that symbol has changed over the years. There was a time when a bypasser could have been forgiven for thinking that the cathedral on its hill seemed to look down on the city with the disdain of accustomed wealth and social position. Today it sends a different message, one of concern for the city and an active involvement in its daily life. That change owes much to the remarkable man who was the bishop."

Next year, the Washington Cathedral will celebrate the completion of its building after years of patience and persistence since the cornerstone was laid in 1907. The chair of the man who helped make it a presence and a force in the life of the nation's capital will be empty.

For more information, call 202-537-6560 or 537-6561.

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