General Convention Working Release #41
Diocesan Press Service. October 17, 1964 [XXV-12]
ST. LOUIS, Oct. 17-- The Rt. Rev. John E. Hines, Bishop of Texas, today was elected the 22nd Presiding Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church.
He succeeds the Rt. Rev. Arthur Lichtenberger, who has led the nation's 3 ½ million Episcopalians since 1958. Bishop Lichtenberger, at age 64, resigned this week because of an ailment, Parkinson's Syndrome.
Bishop Hines, 54, is the youngest man in the Episcopal Church's history to serve as the communion's chief pastor and administrative leader. At the time of his consecration as Bishop Coadjutor of Texas in 1945, he was only 34 years old.
Bishop Hines has led the Houston-based Episcopal diocese since 1955. Prior to his election to the episcopate he was a rector of Christ Church Cathedral, Houston. During his earlier ministry he served parishes in St. Louis and Hannibal, MO, and Augusta, GA.
The new Presiding Bishop, who is expected to take office on January 1, was elected to his post by 154 bishops on the sixth ballot taken during the House of Bishops' executive session held in Christ Church Cathedral. By mid-morning the House of Deputies had concurred in the election.
Other nominated and later disclosed by the Rt. Rev. William A. Crittenden, Bishop of Erie and chairman of the bishops' committee on nominations for a presiding bishop, were: Stephen F. Bayne, Anglican Executive Officer and Director-designate of the Episcopal Executive Council's Overseas Department; Bishop Richard S.M. Emrich of Michigan; Bishop Henry I. Louttit of South Florida; and Bishop Thomas H. Wright of East Carolina.
During a press conference immediately following a brief address to the House of Deputies, Bishop Hines declared that the direction in which the Episcopal Church's future lies is summed up in the proposals for "mutual responsibility and interdependence," a proposal from the 1963 Anglican Congress calling for the re-evaluation and re-structuring of the 44 million member worldwide Anglican Communion's missionary strategy.
"Implicit in this in terms of our structure," he said, "is the relationship between the races because the Lord calls all men... I believe all men are one in Christ."
Also crucial in setting goals for the Church's future, Bishop Hines asserted, is the urban-industrial revolution "into which the Church must plunge... to be relevant in these days of social change." He also recorded his fervent hope that the Episcopal Church will continue in the direction of unity with other churches.
As to the Church's role in the political arena, he stressed that "it is the obligation of the Church to speak clearly and frankly about Christian responsibility toward social and political issues, but not to espouse partisan views or give support to any candidate for office."
The Southern-born bishop's election to the Church's highest office symbolises, in the words of the Bishop Coadjutor John M. Murray of Alabama, the choice of the total church and "is not a regional choice." Bishop Murray, among other Episcopalians, voiced his "total support" for the new Presiding Bishop.
Earlier, Bishop Hines in his address to the House of Deputies, had called for "the help, support and prayers" of all Episcopalians.
"It is a awesome thing," he said, "to hear behind me the footsteps of great men." He then referred to the Church's last three Presiding Bishops, the Rt. Rev. Henry St. George Tucker, the Rt. Rev. Henry Knox Sherrill, and Bishop Lichtenberger, and voiced his hope that he would follow in the tradition set by "these great men of God and great leaders of this church."
Bishop Hines, who probably will be installed sometime in January at ceremonies in the National Episcopal Cathedral in Washington, D.C., is known throughout the church as one of its most "well-rounded" men and as "a fighter" for what he believes.
In his diocese, Bishop Hines has long raised a strong voice of dissent to proponents of racial segregation. Also in that conservative strong-hold, he has liberally criticized right-wing organizations for the divisiveness they have spawned in the Houston area and throughout the country.
In addition to putting forth what has been called "a prophetic stand on race and disunity," Bishop Hines has exerted aggressive leadership to the church's urban ministry, theological education, and college chaplaincy and campus ministry programs. He has mad his diocese's college chaplaincy program the strongest in the Church, and he is the founder of St. Stephen's School, Austin, Texas, one of the Church's most highly recognized parochial schools.
Nationally, he has helped guide the destiny of the church's Executive National Council-- its administrative program arm-- by serving for two six-year terms on the Council. During his last term of office he was chairman of the Home Department.
As chairman of the Presiding Bishop's Strategic Advisory Committee, Bishop Hines has been instrumental in the planning of the Church's long-range strategy. He was one of the Church's first bishops to whole-heartedly endorse the proposals of the "mutual responsibility" document after it was introduced at the 1963 Anglican Congress. Through him, a companion-diocese arrangement has been established with the Diocese of Malawi in East Africa.
Within Anglicanism's scholarly circles, he has been termed one of the few "literate" American bishops; during the 1958 Lambeth Conference he was chairman of the family life commission.
Bishop Hines, son of a country doctor and a pre-med student at the University of the South, Sewanee, Tenn., has been instrumental in laying the groundwork for Texas' present chaplaincy system. For four years he served on the State Board of Hospitals and Special Schools.
Claiming to always have been "ecumenically-minded," Bishop Hines was born into a nine-member family-- five Episcopalians, four Presbyterians-- on October 3, 1910, in Seneca, South Carolina. His mother was a staunch Episcopalian, "single-handedly running" the Seneca parish; his father was just as involved in Southern Presybterianism. At the age of eight, John Elbridge Hines was confirmed into the Episcopal Church.
After ruling out a future in the medical profession while a student at the University of the South, he received his theological training at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, which later awarded him a degree of Doctor of Divinity. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1934.
Bishop Hines is married to the former Helen Louise Orwig of St. Louis. They have one daughter, Mrs. Taylor K. Smith, who is married to an orthopedic surgeon stationed at Park Air Force Base in the Philippines; and four sons: Michael John, a medical student at Baylor University Medical School, Houston; John Christopher, stationed in Germany with the U.S. Army, John Moore, a sophomore student at Duke University in North Carolina; and John Stephen, a high school sophomore at St. Stephen's School, Austin.