Bishop Bayne Named Director of Overseas Department
Diocesan Press Service. October 10, 1963 [XIV-1A]
The Rt. Rev. Stephen F. Bayne, Jr., who has just been named director of the Overseas Department of the National Council of the Protestant Episcopal Church, has stated that his main task in his new job will be to implement the revolutionary Anglican Congress document, "Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence in the Body of Christ."
For the last four years Bishop Bayne has been the chief link in the Anglican Communion's chain of 18 national churches. He will leave his London-based post as executive officer of the Anglican Communion and Bishop-in-Charge of the Convocation of American Churches in Europe on November 1, 1964.
In a statement concerning his change in jobs, Bishop Bayne said, "When I return to my own Church and country next year, my principal duty will be to try to work out the implications of "Mutual Responsibility" in the overseas relationships and mission of the Episcopal Church."
In the meantime, he added, "This immense program must be interpreted and implemented for every Anglican Church. This is my present task and must be for the next twelve months."
The Anglican Congress document adopted by the 18 heads of the Anglican Communion under the chairmanship of the Archbishop of Canterbury, is a sweeping challenge to pool human and material resources in a global way never before envisioned.
"The supreme and radical proposal called "Mutual Responsibility"... is a summary of all I have come to believe in and hope for in the Anglican Communion," Bishop Bayne declared.
But he pointed out that its implementation depends upon its being "heard and obeyed by each Anglican Church, in terms of its own needs and situation."
The 55-year-old bishop was appointed to the unique inter-Anglican post in 1959 by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey Fisher. Since 1960 he has traveled more than 200, 000 miles a year in an effort to establish permanent lines of communication and guide missionary strategy for the 42,000,000-member Anglican Communion.
Prior to his acceptance of the position as Anglican executive office, Bishop Bayne headed the Diocese of Olympia from 1947 to 1959.
Born in New York City on May 21, 1908, he received a BA degree from Amherst College and his Bachelor of Sacred Theology degree from General Theological Seminary, New York City. He was then Fellow and Tutor at the seminary for a year, earning his Master's of Sacred Theology there in 1934.
Ordained in 1933, Bishop Bayne served from 1934 to 1939 as rector of Trinity Church, St. Louis, Mo. The following four years he was rector of St. John's Parish, Northampton, Mass., and chaplain at Smith College there.
From 1942-47 he was chaplain and Chairman of the Department of Religion at Columbia University. During 1944-45 he went on leave to serve as chaplain in the United States Naval Reserve at Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and on board the USS Salerno Bay.
Chairman of the Committee on the Family of the 1958 Lambeth Conference, Bishop Bayne also is a member of the Episcopal Church's Joint Commission on Ecumenical Relations and has served as a member of its Joint Commission on Approaches to Unity. He has represented the Episcopal Church as a delegate to many worldwide ecumenical conferences, among them the Faith and Order Conferences at Lund, Sweden, and Oberlin, Ohio, the two Consultations on Church Unity in Washington, D. C., and Oberlin, Ohio, and the Evanston Assembly of the World Council of Churches.