People
Episcopal News Service. January 25, 1991 [91024M]
The Rt. Rev. Orris George Walker, Jr., was enthroned as the seventh bishop of the Diocese of Long Island on January 5. Walker, 48, becomes the first black to head the church's third largest diocese. A Baltimore native, Walker was rector of a Detroit church prior to his installation as Long Island's bishop coadjutor in April 1988. "I think the church is existing in an exciting time where just about everything is being reexamined," Walker said in a recent interview. He succeeds the Rt. Rev. Robert Campbell Witcher as diocesan bishop.
Chad Walsh, 76, a writer, poet, and English professor, died on January 17 in Shelburne, Vermont, of Alzheimer's disease. His extensive literary works included two books about C.S. Lewis, whose writings were instrumental in Walsh's own conversion from agnosticism in 1945 and his subsequent ordination into the Episcopal priesthood. He also wrote Knock and Enter (1953), a novel for children that served as an introduction to Christianity, and God at Large (1971), which examined the void that Walsh argued resulted from a belief that God was dead. A native of Virginia, Walsh taught for many years at Beloit College in Wisconsin, where he cofounded the prestigious Beloit Poetry Journal in 1950.
The Rev. Canon Leonard Freeman recently announced that he will be leaving his position as canon for communication at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., to become rector of Christ Church in Short Hills, New Jersey. "I do feel truly called to this ministry," Freeman said as he anticipated his new work. "The pastoral and sacramental ministries of preaching, celebrating, and communicating the Gospel have long been the fire in my heart." Freeman will assume his new post on or around April 15.
Bishop James Parker Dees, 75, who resigned from the priesthood of the Episcopal Church in 1963 over what he saw as the church's "emphasis on the social gospel and pro-communist program," died on Christmas Day of heart failure in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Upon his departure from the Episcopal Church, Dees played a guiding role in founding the Anglican Orthodox Church, a racially segregated denomination based in Statesville, North Carolina. In 1988, Dees viewed the consecration of the Rev. Barbara Harris, the Anglican Communion's first female bishop, as a further instance of what he regarded as the church's encouragement of "the spread of AIDS" and "the general moral breakdown of our country." The Anglican Orthodox Church claims members in the United States, Canada, Columbia, Europe, Asia, Africa, Madagascar, the Philippines, and the Fiji Islands.
Richard L. Crawford, former editor and publisher of The Episcopalian, is the new vice president of institutional advancement for Voorhees College in Denmark, South Carolina. He began his duties on January 22.